All readings will be either provided through Moodle or accessible via the Frohring Library
Final Paper is Due on December 22nd at 8PM Rome Time.
September
Week 1
Why Magic and Witchcraft?
21 M Course Intro: Defining Magic and Witchcraft
Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear From Ancient Times to the Present (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017),
pp. 3-9; 16-23 (Deep Perspectives: The Global Context)
23 W New Trends in the Search for the Explanations
Read one of the following two articles:
Robin Briggs, “‘Many Reasons Why’: Witchcraft and the Problem of Multiple Explanation”, in Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in
Culture and Belief, ed. by Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester, and Gareth Roberts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 49-63
Edward Bever, “Current Trends in the Application of Cognitive Science to Magic”, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 7/1 (2012): 3-18
Week 2
The Classical Roots of Magic and Witchcraft
28 M Magic in the Ancient World
Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003, 6th ed.), pp. 1-19 (Intro: The Sources, and The Study of Ancient Magic)
30 W The Witches of Rome
Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia: Rome’s First Witch (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 1-22 (Canidia, or What Is a Witch?)
Horace, Epode V, "The Witch' Incantation": https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpodesAndCarmenSaeculare.php#anchor_Toc98670053
October
2 F Witches Devouring Babies
Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia: Rome’s First Witch (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 65-79 (Canidia as Child-Killing Demon)
Week 3
Folklore, Nature, and Heresy
5 M Shamanism
Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear From Ancient Times to the Present, pp. 74-95 (The Shamanic Context)
Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits. Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 72-78 (Folk Trances)
7 W The World of Nature
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution
(New York: HarperCollins, 1989), pp. 1-41 (Nature as Female)
Week 4
12 M The Game of Diana and the World of the Dead
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 50-54 (Isidore of Seville: Etymologies);
pp.60-67 (Regino of Prum: The Canon Episcopi, and Burchard of Worms: The Corrector)
Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear From Ancient Times to the Present, pp. 120-146 (The Hosts of the Night)
14 W The Demonization of Beliefs
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 112-118 (Popes, Theologians, Preachers, Lawyers, and Judges; Pope
Gregory IX: Vox in Rama; Pope Alexander IV: Sorcery and the Inquisitors); pp. 119-127 (Pope John XXII: Sorcery and the
Inquisitors; Nicolau Eymeric: The Directorium inquisitorum)
Week 5
The Sabbath
19 M Constructing The Sabbath
Martine Ostorero, “The Concept of the Witches’ Sabbath in the Alpine Region (1430-1440): Text and Context”, in Witchcraft Mythologies
and Persecutions: Demons, Spirits, Witches / 3, ed. by Gábor Klaniczay and Éva Pócs, (Budapest: CEU Press, 2008), pp. 15-34
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 149-159 (The Sect of Diabolical Witches; Pope Alexander V to Pontus Fougeyron
on New Sects; Pope Eugenius IV: Two Letters on the Pressing Danger; Johannes Nider: The Formicarius)
21 W Interpreting The Sabbath
Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, tr. by Raymond Rosenthal
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 89-110
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 159-162 (The Errores Gazariorum); pp. 166-169 (Martin Le Franc, The Defender of Ladies)
Week 6
The DNA of Witch-Beliefs
26 M Classical Culture and Folklore in Witch-Beliefs
Fabrizio Conti, "Notes on The Nature of Beliefs in Witchcraft: Folklore and Classical Culture in 15th Century
Mendicant Traditions", Religions (2019), 10, 576: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/10/576
28 W Take-Home Midterm Exam
Paradigms of Witchcraft: "Cumulative Concept" VS Witchcraft Mythologies
Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, repr. 1993), Ch. 2 (The Intellectual Foundations)
Richard Kieckhefer, “Mythologies of Witchcraft in the Fifteenth Century”, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 1-1 (2006): 79-108
November
Week 7
The Hammer of Witches (Malleus Maleficarum)
2 M Instructing the Inquisitors and Persecuting the Witches
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 176-228 (The Hammer of Witches); p. 229 (Pope Alexander VI's Letter)
Witchcraft, Fear, and History
4 W Film Screening and Discussion
Häxan, the first docufilm on witchcraft, released in 1922
Teofilo F. Ruiz, The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), pp. 4-16
6 F Make-up Class
Witch-Beliefs in Late-Medieval Italian Towns
"Bernardino of Siena Preaches Against Women Sorcerers", in Kors and Peters Witchcraft in Europe, pp. 133-137
Reading and Discussion of Excerpts from Anti-Witchcraft Texts
Week 8
Witches as Women
9 M Why Women? Witches as Women from Classical Rome to the Malleus Maleficarum
Read one of the following two articles:
Marina Montesano, Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
(Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 37-66 (The Witch as a Woman: Tales of Magic in Rome)
Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Beliefs (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001),
Ch. 2 (Why Women? The Malleus Maleficarum)
11 W A Male Domination Issue?
Read one of the following two articles:
Marianne Hester, Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study of the Dynamics of Male Domination
(London: Routledge, 1992), selected pp. 107-130 ("The Early Modern Witch Hunts I")
Tamar Herzig, "Flies, Heretics, and the Gendering of Witchcraft", Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 5/1 (2010): 51-80
Week 9
The Trials
16 M The Witch-Craze*
* A list of online tools/databases for the study of witch-trials will be provided and discussed
Richard Kieckhefer, “The First Wave of Trials for Diabolic Witchcraft”, in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft
in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, ed. by Brian P. Levack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 159-178
Tamar Herzig, "Witchcraft Prosecutions in Italy", in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft, pp. 249-267
18 W The Inquisitor and the Defendant
Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992),
pp. 1-15 (Witchcraft and Popular Piety: Notes on a Modenese Trial of 1519)
Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, pp. 141-148 (The Inquisitor as Anthropologist)
Week 10
Being (or Believed to be) a Witch?
23 M Witches: Beliefs and Behaviors
Fabrizio Conti, Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers: Pastoral Approach and
Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), selected pp.
25 W The Benandanti: Forced to Become Witches
Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), selected pp.
Week 11
Witches in the Arts and Cinema
30 M The “Occult Revival” in Popular Culture
Marcello Truzzi, “The Occult Revival as Popular Culture: Some Random Observations on the Old and the Nouveau Witch”,
in The Sociological Quarterly, 13/1 (1972), pp. 16-36
December
2 W Witches in Art
Charles Zika, “Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe”, in Levack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft
Week 12
Towards the End
7 M The Decline of Witch-Craze and the Rise of Vampirism
Read one of the following:
Brian Levack, “The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions”, in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft, pp. 429-446
Peter Elmer, "Medicine and Witchcraft", in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft, pp. 561-591
9 W Final Discussion - Magic: Present and Future
Michael Bailey, Magic: The Basics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018) , Ch. 6 (Magic in the Modern World)
Final Exam