Hans Peter Broedel is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Dakota and received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington.  He is the author of The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft, and has published articles on witches, late medieval apparitions, and Early Modern natural history.  His current research focuses on problems in the historical study of epistemology, and more specifically those involving credulity and skepticism in Early Modern attitudes towards fantastic animals.