Emily Fisher Gray

“Developing classroom materials and role immersion games for use at Norwich and universities throughout the world has been one of my favorite professional pursuits. I love how open Norwich students are to pedagogical experiments — I literally could not do this anywhere else!”

Emily Fisher Gray received a doctorate in early modern European history from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. She spent three years as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Penn before joining the Norwich University faculty in 2007.

Gray has written on the early causes and progress of the Protestant Reformation, the phenomenon of Lutheran-Catholic co-existence, and the unique aesthetics of Lutheran architecture. Her recent book, "Wrestling with the Reformation in Augsburg: 1530," has been adopted as a textbook at universities across the United States. Gray currently serves on the executive committee of the Society for Reformation Research and as an affiliate scholar with the Shared Churches Project at the University of Arizona.

Gray teaches courses in European and world history. Her favorite courses are those that involve elements of immersive role play so students can use course readings to solve historical problems in real time. She also enjoys introducing students to the delights of archival research and the wonders of rare books and objects. Gray serves on the editorial board of Reacting to the Past and has contributed to the History for the 21st Century Project for the World History Association.

Ph.D. European History, University of Pennsylvania
B.A. English and History, Utah State University

Emily Gray conducts research in religious change and religious diversity and how it impacts society. She researches the period around the Reformation in Germany (1450-1750) with a focus on Augsburg, a town that officially recognized both Lutheranism and Catholicism as official religions. Her research journey began when she fell in love with a church in Augsburg, Germany and wanted to discover how and why it was constructed. She actively mentors students, advising that students approach professors with projects they are interested in and offer to collaborate.

Many faculty members have aspects of their projects they could involve students in and it's great to get new perspectives from students. They collaborate with colleagues at Norwich and beyond, including the "Shared Churches Project," a group of history researchers who study church buildings in which more than one religious group worship. Emily is involved with the History for the 21st Century Project through the World History Association, as well as being on the editorial board for Reacting to the Past, which helps faculty develop role play games for teaching.

HI 105 First-Year Seminar
HI 108 History of Civilizations II
HI 220 Revolutions: Amer, French, Haiti
HI 321 Reformation Europe
HI 322 Colloq: Crime and Witchcraft
HI 381 Thirty Years War
HI 404 Senior Seminar: Social History of Stratford

Wrestling with the Reformation in Augsburg, 1530. (Reacting to the Past Series, University of North Carolina Press, 2023.)

“Fighting over Churches: Augsburg and Multi-Confessional Cities in the Thirty-Years War.” German History 42:2, 2024.

“Rejecting Neighborliness: The Failure of Simultaneum in Augsburg” in Sharing Churches in Early Modern Europe ed. David Luebke and Marjorie Plummer. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation History, De Gruyter Brill, 2025.)