Naming The Witch

Download or read book Naming the Witch written by James T. Siegel and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Naming the Witch explores the recent series of witchcraft accusations and killings in East Java, which spread as the Suharto regime slipped into crisis and then fell. After many years of ethnographic work focusing on the origins and nature of violence in Indonesia, Siegel came to the conclusion that previous anthropological explanations of witchcraft and magic, mostly based on sociological conceptions but also including the work of E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Claude Lévi-Strauss, were simply inadequate to the task of providing a full understanding of the phenomena associated with sorcery, and particularly with the ideas of power connected with it. Previous explanations have tended to see witchcraft in simple opposition to modernism and modernity (enchantment vs. disenchantment). The author sees witchcraft as an effect of culture, when the latter is incapable of dealing with accident, death, and the fear of the disintegration of social and political relations. He shows how and why modernization and witchcraft can often be companions, as people strive to name what has hitherto been unnameable.

Download or read book Naming the Witch written by Kimberly B. Stratton and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kimberly B. Stratton investigates the cultural and ideological motivations behind early imaginings of the magician, the sorceress, and the witch in the ancient world. Accusations of magic could carry the death penalty or, at the very least, marginalize the person or group they targeted. But Stratton moves beyond the popular view of these accusations as mere slander. In her view, representations and accusations of sorcery mirror the complex struggle of ancient societies to define authority, legitimacy, and Otherness. Stratton argues that the concept "magic" first emerged as a discourse in ancient Athens where it operated part and parcel of the struggle to define Greek identity in opposition to the uncivilized "barbarian" following the Persian Wars. The idea of magic then spread throughout the Hellenized world and Rome, reflecting and adapting to political forces, values, and social concerns in each society. Stratton considers the portrayal of witches and magicians in the literature of four related periods and cultures: classical Athens, early imperial Rome, pre-Constantine Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. She compares patterns in their representations of magic and analyzes the relationship between these stereotypes and the social factors that shaped them. Stratton's comparative approach illuminates the degree to which magic was (and still is) a cultural construct that depended upon and reflected particular social contexts. Unlike most previous studies of magic, which treated the classical world separately from antique Judaism, Naming the Witch highlights the degree to which these ancient cultures shared ideas about power and legitimate authority, even while constructing and deploying those ideas in different ways. The book also interrogates the common association of women with magic, denaturalizing the gendered stereotype in the process. Drawing on Michel Foucault's notion of discourse as well as the work of other contemporary theorists, such as Homi K. Bhabha and Bruce Lincoln, Stratton's bewitching study presents a more nuanced, ideologically sensitive approach to understanding the witch in Western history.

Download or read book Llewellyn's Complete Book of Names written by K. M. Sheard and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2011 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parents want the perfect name for their child. Among the baby books available today, none are tailored to the needs of witches, pagans, and other seekers.

Download or read book Witches written by Evelyn Heinemann and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this topical study the author argues that the naming and persecution of women as witches in the 16th and 17th century resulted from the powerful unresolved psychic conflicts of their persecutors. The historical and social contexts in which trials took place are examined for evidence of how attitudes and beliefs of the time came to play their part in the extraordinary development of this persecutory phenomenon. Ms. Heinemann asserts that the witch phenomenon is an example of the potential for destructiveness by the human imagination and shows the necessity of understanding unconscious processes in social phenomena today. The dark forces and process identifiable in the past continue to find expression in the demonization and persecution of men and women today. This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, sociologists, social historians and women everywhere.

Download or read book Naming the Witch written by James T. Siegel and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Witch's Child written by Arthur Yorinks and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Desiring a child of her own, Rosina the witch fashions one out of straw and scraps, but when she cannot bring the rag child to life she becomes enraged and turns the village children into shrubs, where they stay until a kind girl discovers the discarded doll and saves her.

Download or read book Sea-Witch written by Never Angeline Nørth and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-18 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mythological exploration of identity, gender, body, and sexuality.