Research focus
Chiara-Marie Hauser's research focuses on the history of violence in the early modern period, particularly sexual violence against children and violence in the context of the Thirty Years' War. She also studies the history of Scandinavia, especially Iceland and Sweden. Here, too, her focus is on phenomena of violence, such as the attack on Iceland in 1627 (Tyrkjaránið) and the child witch trials in early modern Sweden.
dissertation project
The dissertation project focuses on the question of how individuals who participated in trials involving sexual violence against children in the early modern period—witnesses, parents, doctors, midwives, lawyers, and even victims and perpetrators themselves—spoke about this type of violence. The case studies are compiled using a discourse analytical approach, supported by historical semantics. Files and court documents relating to trials conducted between 1612 and 1735, in which children on the one hand and adults on the other were accused, are examined.
Publications
Hauser, C.-M. (2025). "A boy saw a little rose standing there": Children as victims of early modern violence.
Hauser, C.-M. (2025). "Pray, children, pray, tomorrow the Swede is coming": Children as victims of early modern violence. Blickpunkt Jugendhilfe, 30(1), 13-19.
Hauser, C.-M. (2024). "They should just keep quiet and be silent": Sexual violence against children based on the early modern case of Maria Üehle. Yearbook of the Historical Society for the Principality of Liechtenstein, 123.
conferences
"Traces of Trauma. Hidden Inscriptions of Violence in Early Modern Ego-Documents of the Thirty Years' War," Military History Consortium conference, June 3-5, 2026
Violence: Practices, Structures, Conjunctures, Conference of the Austrian Society for Empirical Cultural Studies and Folklore, September 17–19, 2026
"A Microhistorical Study of Age as a Legal Boundary Marker on the Issue of Sexual Violence against Children in Early Modern Times," GRACEH 2025, University of Vienna, April 8, 2025
lectures
"Sexual Violence Against Children in the Early Modern Period" Presentation of the dissertation project for the F*GG Lab at the University of Vienna, January 15, 2026
"Can we learn from history? Sexual violence against children and violence against women" Lecture for the Altkalksburg Association, March 28, 2025
"Of 'evil deeds' and 'cruel malice'. Case studies on sexual violence against children in the early modern period," GaM, University of Vienna, April 2, 2025
"A boy saw a little rose standing there – violence against children and young people, a historical constant?" Commemorative speech for "100 Years of Inner Wheel" with the Germany project "Help for traumatized children and young people," September 21, 2024