Academics say they’ve seen growing intellectual curiosity in magic, occult
This fall, colleges will host a variety of classes on witches and magic, including ones that examine tarot cards, write spellbooks, and analyze Taylor Swift’s sorcery accusations.
And academics claim to have noticed a growing intellectual interest in the subject.
The number of books on witchcraft published by major scientists since the 1970s is “absolutely extraordinary,” according to Yale University Professor Carlos Eire, who recently spoke to The College Fix via Zoom.
Eire, who teaches religion and research the background of the divine, said most individuals know it’s really dream. He also made it clear that some people might take witchcraft significantly and might be drawn to such programs.
He linked the rise in interest to Deborah Harkness’s book-turned-Amazon Prime line” A Discovery of Witches” and the success of the Harry Potter series,” Interview with a Vampire,” to the popularity of supernatural books and television shows.
Eire said he is not concerned about the expansion of scientific fields in regard to magic and related subjects as long as the emphasis is educational.
If training people magic, he said,” there is some academic or scientific aspect missing.”
Spellbooks, spirits, Taylor Swift, and ‘ gender concerns ‘ ,
One of the many colleges that will be offering lessons on the subject this drop is Yale.
Its fall course,” Story of the Night” did “examine how the day became the temple of the devil, the devil, the monster, and the dead”, according to the program description.
At Duke University, a first-year reading program called” Radical Magic”, will examine why charm and the mystical “have been coded as female, irrational, and sinister”. Additionally, students may explain why Taylor Swift is accused of witchcraft.
Cheryl Spinner, a course teacher, stated via email to The Fix that she will “use sex and female studies to parse out what’s really going on with these accusations.” She also stated that the group will examine footage from Swift’s Eras Tour.
The lyrics to one of her music,” I jump from the gallows and I levitate down your city,” which Swift sings on a moving level that appears to make her fly, were discussed in productive discussions with Spinner in prior classes about the music legend.
The course also will verify the education quality of deck cards, spells, and incantations. According to Spinner, their ultimate goal will be to write a reliquary, or spellbook, that contains “magical insight and oral traditions that might otherwise be forgotten.”
Students practice making connections between accounts while reading for one another, according to Spinner, who via internet told The Fix.
Spinner claimed that she is training students to become stronger philosophers and artists rather than to predict the future.
The Fix discovered in a search of Georgetown University’s program catalog that the school will also be offering a number of courses in the subject this drop.
One,” Fairies in Story, Literature, and Film”, will study the representation of the witch in the context of history, poetry, and video, including the Grimm boys fairy tales and Disney movies, according to the course outline.
German Professor Astrid Wiegert, who teaches the class, told The Fix in a recent email that she also has noticed an increase in the subject’s popularity in her 25 years of teaching.
Wiegert said Georgetown, a private Catholic university, typically offers three to four classes per semester that connect witchcraft with various disciplines, such as film, literature, and history.
” As a societal and historical phenomenon, the topic of witchcraft is one that defies easy explanations and easy answers”, Wiegert said.
According to Wiegert, “it defies black-and-white thinking and requires that students grapple with the many nuances of the phenomenon that range from local and regional specificities to gender issues ( it was not only old women with an outsider status who were accused and killed ), to the Church having critics in its ranks who worked for the abduction of witch persecutions.”
More classes at Princeton, Columbia, Tulane, and Indiana
At Indiana University, the course” A History of Magic, or, It is All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Accused of Witchcraft” will explore online catalogs and images of magic texts and objects, including 13th century Chinese carved bones and witches-hunts in Europe and North America.
History Professor Clare Griffin, who teaches the class, told The Fix examining the history of magic helps students to think critically.
” Ideas about magic – whether natural, beneficial, harmful, or fake – can be found across the world and dating back to the ancient period”, she said. We can compare how many different authors and groups wrote about magic, what that tells us about them, and how context influences text, to what we can say.
Griffin added that she also challenges students to “explain why they think what they think, back that up with relevant evidence, and explain why they find any evidence that seems to contradict their position to be less convincing.”
Meanwhile, another course at Princeton,” Spell: Visions of School in Fantasy and Science Fiction”, will dive into the Harry Potter novels and other fantasy fiction to explore educational institutions ‘” culture and politics”.
” This course explores fantastical works that showcase the very real issues that shape education, including race, class, gender, privilege, and disability”, its description states.
Tulane is offering a class for freshmen,” Ancient Magic, Modern Witchcraft”, focusing on the evolution of the practices through time.
The course description states students will explore magical literature, rituals, and beliefs as well as “demonology, illness, prayer, exorcism, and witchcraft”.
Another fall course at Columbia,” Text, Magic, Performance”, will examine the connection between” the text and performance in light of magic, ritual, possession, narration, and related articulations of power”.
” Readings are drawn from classic theoretical writings, colonial fiction, and ethnographic accounts”, the description states.
” Domains of inquiry include: spirit possession, trance states, séance, ritual performance, … and things that ultimately move independently”, according to the description.
The course instructors at Princeton, Tulane, and Columbia did not respond to The Fix‘s requests for comment.
MORE: University to offer master’s degree in witchcraft, magic and occult science
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