Daniel Christensen | People, Biola University

Documents

Degrees

Ph.D., University of California, Riverside
M.A., University of California, Riverside
B.A., Crossroads College
B.A., University of Wisconsin

Biography

Daniel grew up Presbyterian in a small town in Minnesota, and came to faith in Christ at age 17. He worked in the summers for two Church of Christ churches during his years at Crossroads College, a Bible college in Rochester, Minnesota. He worked in banking and computers for a number of years, including manning a technical support phoneline for Microsoft operating systems (no easy task), and had a career change to academics after he met his wife Dagmar, a woman from northern Germany.

Daniel's interests lie in German history and the history of Europe from 1400-1800. His dissertation researched the political, medical and Christian efforts to combat epidemics in seventeenth-century Germany. He has presented papers at national conferences of the history of medicine in Europe, on the reformation thinker and early Luther-supporter Willibald Pirckheimer of Nuremberg; and on a piece of Christian satirical fiction attacking the Catholic side in the Luther movement. Presently, he is interested in the intersection of political regimes and Christian ideology and practice in early modern European history. He has taught courses in various periods of European history, the history of Christianity, world civilizations and, most recently, U.S. history.

Affiliations

Conference Group for Central European History
American Historical Association
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA.
Conference on Faith and History
American Historical Association
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA.
Center for German and European History, University of California
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference
Conference on Faith and History
Conference Group for Central European History
California World History Association

Publications

Books

Daniel Christensen,“Politics and the Plague in Early Modern Germany: Political Efforts to Combat Epidemics in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel during the Seventeenth Century ” (Saarbrücken: Verlag Müller, 2008)..
Daniel Christensen and Randolph C.Head, eds.,“Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Early Modern German Culture: Order and Creativity” . 1500-1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Daniel Christensen, ed. “Meridians: Sources in World History” (Boston: Pearson, 2007), ISBN: 978-0-536-49968-4. This is a collection of primary sources I had made for my world civilization course, as a print on demand book.
Daniel Christensen, co-author of “Introduction: Orthodoxies and Heterodoxy in the Early Modern German Experience, in Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Early Modern German Culture: Order and Creativity” 1500-1700, edited by Randolph C. Head and Daniel Christensen (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Articles

Unpublished article: Daniel Christensen,“A Christian Worldview in the Teaching of History,” for the Biola University Faculty Integration Seminar, 2006, director Michael Wilkins.
Book review:“The Interplay of Text and Image in the History of Early Modern Science” reviewing Sachiko Kusukawa and Ian Maclean, eds., Transmitting Knowledge: Words, Images, and Instruments in Early Modern Europe for H-Net, http://www.h- net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=15495 (August, 2008).
Daniel Christensen,“Politics and the Plague: Church and State in Early Modern Germany” Sacred History(Nov./Dec., 2006).

Presentations

“Confronting the Plague in Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel: Rulers, Plague Officials, and Public Health during an Epidemic in the Seventeenth Century.” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, San Antonio, TX, October 2002. Sponsored by the Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär of German and North American scholars.
“Premodern Public Health in Seventeenth-Century Brandenburg-Prussia: The Establishment of the Collegium Medicum of 1685.” UC Colloquium on Early Modern Central Europe, at University of California, Berkeley. 2001.
“Willibald Pirckheimer and his Patronage Networks in the German Reformation.” Southern California Graduate Student History Conference, University of California, Riverside. 1999.
“A Tale of Two Networks: Willibald Pirckheimer’s Eccius Dedolatus and the Early Reformation.” Colloquium for Early Modern Central Europe, at UCLA. 1999.
“From Austerity to Apathy to Hope: Christianity in 19th and 20th Century England.” Presented to Biola students in preparation for study abroad in England, April, 2005.

Areas of Expertise for Media Interviews

History of Medicine
Modern German History