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JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY

COURSE CODE: "HS 324 H"
COURSE NAME: "Magic and Witchcraft in Medieval and Early Modern Europe - HONORS (This course carries 4 semester hours of credits. A minimum CUM GPA of 3.5 is required)"
SEMESTER & YEAR: Fall 2022
SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: Fabrizio Conti
EMAIL: [email protected]
HOURS: TTH 6:00 PM 7:15 PM
TOTAL NO. OF CONTACT HOURS: 45
CREDITS: 3
PREREQUISITES: Co-requisites: EN 110; Recommended: Junior Standing, One previous history course
OFFICE HOURS:

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course examines the rise and decline of beliefs in magic and witchcraft – the supposed power of humans to intervene in natural events and to harm others by supernatural means – in medieval and early modern Europe, up to the outburst of the so-called “witch craze.” It studies social, cultural, literary, judicial, religious, gender, economic, and environmental aspects of these beliefs, and their roots in such things as classical Greek and Roman literary traditions and popular folklore. Students will analyze primary sources in English, such as early literary texts elaborating on witch
beliefs, the infamous handbook for inquisitors, Hammer of Witches, the records of early modern trials, and intellectual reflections on the reality or otherwise of magic and witchcraft, and a variety of contemporary historiographical explanations. Students will thus be helped to frame magic and witchcraft in their historical, anthropological, environmental, sociological, and intellectual contexts, and to enrich their understanding the evolution of medieval and early modern European societies and cultures.

Satisfies: "Medieval History" or "Early Modern History" core course requirement for History majors
SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT:

 

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. 

 

This course will take a comparative and, when possible, multidisciplinary approach to a wide range of topics concerning magic and witchcraft in medieval and early modern Europe. We will examine the formation and the social uses of categories and ideas such as magic, superstition, heresy, and witchcraft, the development of relevant rituals and traditions, and the scapegoating process through which particular groups – such as the leper, the Jew, the heretic, and eventually the witch – were identified or created. We will also consider the gendering of witchcraft and the related issues of male domination, and the roots of ideas about witches and witchcraft in Greco- Roman traditions and in popular beliefs and folklore. Analyses of primary sources – including Heinrich Kramer’s “handbook,” Hammer of Witches (1486), and the juridical procedures aimed at identifying “witches” and making them “confess” to their alleged crimes – and secondary literature, including Carlo Ginzburg’s popular study on the “Benandanti” or “Good-goers,” will help us to understand how the cultural construction of witchcraft-related stereotypes led to the outbreak of the “witch-craze” and the persecution of witches by both churches and states. We will conclude by considering the decline of ideas about witchcraft and their evolution into ideas about “vampirism,” and the representation of witchcraft in modern and contemporary arts and cinema.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Students will develop their knowledge of the European witchcraft phenomenon, its causes, contexts, and consequences, and their skills in thinking, speaking, and writing critically about complex historical phenomena, through the examination of textual and non-textual primary sources and the evaluation of diverse interpretations of sources, events, and ideas.
TEXTBOOK:
Book TitleAuthorPublisherISBN numberLibrary Call NumberCommentsFormatLocal BookstoreOnline Purchase
Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary HistoryAlan Charles Kors and Edward Peters University of Pennsylvania Press (2nd ed. 2001) 9780812217513      
REQUIRED RESERVED READING:
NONE

RECOMMENDED RESERVED READING:
NONE
GRADING POLICY
-ASSESSMENT METHODS:
AssignmentGuidelinesWeight
Audiovisual Project This is a project to be done and presented in pairs and consisting in a comparative/critical analysis of a movie/TV documentary show on witchcraft against selected historical sources. The outcome will be a 15-minute presentation. A list of sources and visual items will be provided. Topics and dates of the presentation will be agreed upon with the instructor.20%
Research Paper This is a paper of 1500 words, which will be based on the examination of primary sources and/or online tools/databases for the studying of witch-trials. You will be given a list of sources/online tools/scholarly articles, among which you will select the one(s) you prefer.20%
Midterm ExamThis will be an in-class written exam composed of short answer and essay questions. Your grade on this exam will depend upon the analytical strength and persuasiveness of your arguments as well as the factual accuracy of your answers.20%
Final ExamThis will be an in-class written exam composed of short answer and essay questions. Your grade on this exam will depend upon the analytical strength and persuasiveness of your arguments as well as the factual accuracy of your answers.20%
Brief Source Analysis OR PresentationThis is a written source analysis of about 800 words on a source agreed upon between the student and the instructor to be submitted at any time during the term. Alternatively, the student may give a short presentation instead of the paper. The source to be analyzed can be of various nature (textual, artistic/iconographic, magical objects/tools, etc.) and from any historical times (Ancient/Classical, Medieval, Early Modern). 10%
Attendance and Class ParticipationIt is mandatory that you (1) are in class, (2) have done the readings, and (3) express your views and questions in class, and are able to make connections with previous topics. Persistent absences or failure to do the readings will also affect your grade.10%

-ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
AWork of this quality directly addresses the question or problem raised and provides a coherent argument displaying an extensive knowledge of relevant information or content. This type of work demonstrates the ability to critically evaluate concepts and theory and has an element of novelty and originality. There is clear evidence of a significant amount of reading beyond that required for the course.
BThis is highly competent level of performance and directly addresses the question or problem raised.There is a demonstration of some ability to critically evaluatetheory and concepts and relate them to practice. Discussions reflect the student’s own arguments and are not simply a repetition of standard lecture andreference material. The work does not suffer from any major errors or omissions and provides evidence of reading beyond the required assignments.
CThis is an acceptable level of performance and provides answers that are clear but limited, reflecting the information offered in the lectures and reference readings.
DThis level of performances demonstrates that the student lacks a coherent grasp of the material.Important information is omitted and irrelevant points included.In effect, the student has barely done enough to persuade the instructor that s/he should not fail.
FThis work fails to show any knowledge or understanding of the issues raised in the question. Most of the material in the answer is irrelevant.

-ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS:

ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS AND EXAMINATION POLICY
You cannot make-up a major exam (midterm or final) without the permission of the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstandings or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed. The final exam period runs until ____________

 

Letter grades and corresponding percentages for this class

94 – 100 points = A

90 – 93.99 pts = A-

87 – 89.99 = B+

83 – 86.99 = B

80 – 82.99 = B-

77 – 79.99 = C+

70 – 76.99 = C

60 – 69.99 = D

59.99 – 0 = F 

ACADEMIC HONESTY
As stated in the university catalog, any student who commits an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade on the work in which the dishonesty occurred. In addition, acts of academic dishonesty, irrespective of the weight of the assignment, may result in the student receiving a failing grade in the course. Instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Academic Affairs. A student who is reported twice for academic dishonesty is subject to summary dismissal from the University. In such a case, the Academic Council will then make a recommendation to the President, who will make the final decision.
STUDENTS WITH LEARNING OR OTHER DISABILITIES
John Cabot University does not discriminate on the basis of disability or handicap. Students with approved accommodations must inform their professors at the beginning of the term. Please see the website for the complete policy.

SCHEDULE

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 Europepp. 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