Spencer J. Weinreich

Spencer J. Weinreich is a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and from 2026 will be Assistant Professor of History at University of California, Los Angeles. His research explores the history of early modern Europe, with particular interests in the history of Christianity, the history of the prison, and the history of science, seeking to understand how violence has been a form of religious expression and an instrument of knowledge-making, as well as the relationship between material culture and religion.

His first book, An Experimental Box: A History of Solitary Confinement (under contract with Harvard University Press), charts the history of solitary confinement from the late Middle Ages to the present, as the history of serial experimentation with the disturbing powers of isolation. His other projects include the material history of the Reformation from relics to vestments to coins, the history of hunger, and the history of the Irish language.

He received his Ph.D. in the History of Science from Princeton University, an M.Phil. in Theology (Ecclesiastical History) from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. in History from Yale University. His research has been published in Early Science and Medicine, Journal of the History of Ideas, Social History of Medicine, History Workshop Journal, Renaissance Quarterly, Punishment & Society, Church History, and Journal of Social History, among other fora.

Spencer can be reached at sjweinreich@fas.harvard.edu.

Photo credit: Hannah Marcus.