This course participates in the Global Course Connection project sponsored by the Global Liberal Arts Alliance, of which JCU is a member institution. The course is delivered in connection with the "Race and Racism" course taught by Prof. Jennifer Grubbs at Antioch College, OH, USA. This means that students will have the opportunity to participate in some joint activities - remotely - with students from the other course, including lectures and assignments (some of the assignments will be done collaboratively, there are no extra assignments). Efforts are being made to organize a student symposium in which students from the two courses will present joint research in person at JCU at the end of the course. More details will follow.
All readings will be either provided through Moodle or accessible via the Frohring Library
SEPTEMBER
Week 1
6 T Course Intro: Defining Magic and Witchcraft
ü 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)
8 TH New Trends in the Search for the Explanations
· Read one of the following two articles:
ü 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
ü Edward Bever, “Current Trends in the Application of Cognitive Science to Magic”, Magic, Ritual, and
Witchcraft 7/1 (2012): 3-18
Week 2
13 T Magic in the Ancient World
ü 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)
Optional:
ü Naomi Janowitz, Aelian on Tortoise Sex and the Artifice of “Erotic Love Magic”, in Fabrizio Conti, ed.,
Civilizations of the Supernatural (2020), pp. 13-30
15 TH Representation of Witches in Roman Literature and Art
ü Elizabeth Ann Pollard, "Witch-Crafting in Roman Literature and Art", Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (2008): 119-155
16 F Make-Up Day for Nov. 24
Curse Tablets and Binding Magic
- How to Create a Curse Tablet (without harming anyone!); film Screening and Discussion
Week 3
20 T The Witches of Rome
ü Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia: Rome’s First Witch (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 1-22
(Canidia, or What Is a Witch?)
ü Horace, Epode V, "The Witch' Incantation":
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpodesAndCarmenSaeculare.php#anchor_Toc98670053
22 TH Witches Devouring Babies
ü Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia: Rome’s First Witch (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 65-79
(Canidia as Child-Killing Demon)
Week 4
27 T Shamanism
ü Robert L. Winzeler, Anthropology and Religion (Altamira Press, 2012), pp. 154-169
ü Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits. Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 72-78 (Folk Trances)
29 TH The World of Nature
ü Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution
(New York: HarperCollins, 1989), pp. 1-41 (Nature as Female)
OCTOBER
Week 5
4 T The “Game of Diana” (Ludus Dianae)
ü 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)
ü Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear From Ancient Times to the Present, pp. 120-146
(The Hosts of the Night)
6 TH The Demonization of Folkloric Beliefs
ü 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 6
11 T Constructing The Sabbath I
ü 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
ü Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 149-154 (The Sect of Diabolical Witches; Pope Alexander V
to Pontus Fougeyron on New Sects; Pope Eugenius IV: Two Letters on the Pressing Danger)
13 TH Constructing The Sabbath II
ü Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 155-162 (Johannes Nider: The Formicarius;
the Errores Gazariorum); pp. 166-169 (Martin Le Franc, The Defender of Ladies)
Week 7
18 T Interpreting The Sabbath
ü Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, tr. by Raymond Rosenthal
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 89-110
ü Marina Montesano, Folklore, Magic, and Witchcraft: Cultural Exchanges (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 1-15 (Introduction)
20 TH Classical Culture and Folklore
ü 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
21 F Make-Up Day for Nov. 1
Review for Mid-Term Exam
Take-Home Midterm Exam: 23-27 October
Week 8
25 T Paradigms of Witchcraft: The "Cumulative Concept"
ü Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, repr. 1993), Ch. 2
(The Intellectual Foundations)
27 TH Paradigms of Witchcraft: The “Mythologies of Witchcraft”
ü Richard Kieckhefer, “Mythologies of Witchcraft in the Fifteenth Century”, Magic, Ritual, and
Witchcraft 1-1 (2006): 79-108
NOVEMBER
Week 9
1 T HOLYDAY: NO CLASS!
3 TH The Preacher’s Demons: Fear of Witches in an Italian Town
ü "Bernardino of Siena Preaches Against Women Sorcerers", in Kors and Peters Witchcraft in Europe, pp. 133-137
ü Franco Mormando, The Preacher’s Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early
Renaissance Italy, selected pp.
Week 10
8 T Instructing the Inquisitors and Persecuting the Witches
ü Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 176-228 (The Hammer of Witches); p. 229 (Pope Alexander VI's Letter)
10 TH Film Screening and Discussion
Ø Häxan, the first docufilm on witchcraft, released in 1922
ü Teofilo F. Ruiz, The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), pp. 4-16
Week 11
15 T Why Women and Why Witches Fly
ü Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Beliefs (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2001), Chapters 2 and 5
17 TH The Male Domination Issue
ü Marianne Hester, Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study of the Dynamics of Male Domination
(London: Routledge, 1992), pp.1-32
ü Tamar Herzig, "Flies, Heretics, and the Gendering of Witchcraft", Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 5/1
(2010): 51-80
Week 12
22 T The Witch-Craze
ü W. Behringer, "Climatic Change and Witch-Hunting: The Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities", Climatic Change 43 (1999)
Read one of the following two book chapters:
ü 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
ü Tamar Herzig, "Witchcraft Prosecutions in Italy", in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft
24 TH THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY: NO CLASS!
Week 13
29 T Witches: Beliefs and Behaviors
ü Fabrizio Conti, Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers: Pastoral Approach and Intellectual
Debate in Renaissance Milan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 238-301
DECEMBER
1 TH Research Paper Due
The Benandanti: Forced to Become Witches
ü Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 1-32
2 F Make-Up Day for Dec. 8
Images of Witches
ü Charles Zika, “Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe”, in Levack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft
Week 14
6 T The Rise of Vampirism and Witchcraft Today
ü Brian Levack, “The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions”, in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft, pp. 429-446
ü Modern transformations of witchcraft: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/witchcraft-taschen-witch-symbolism-art-culture-queue/index.html
8 TH HOLIDAY: NO CLASS!
Final Exam