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Languages of Witchcraft
Narrative, Ideology and Meaning in Early Modern Culture
Languages of Witchcraft
Narrative, Ideology and Meaning in Early Modern Culture
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Description
Different conceptions of the world and of reality have made witchcraft possible in some societies and impossible in others. How did the people of early modern Europe experience it and what was its place in their culture? The new essays in this collection illustrate the latest trends in witchcraft research and in cultural history in general. After three decades in which the social analysis of witchcraft accusations has dominated the subject, they turn instead to its significance and meaning as a cultural phenomenon - to the 'languages' of witchcraft, rather than its causes. As a result, witchcraft seems less startling than it once was, yet more revealing of the world in which it occurred.
Table of Contents
Notes of Contributors
Introduction; S. Clark
PART 1: HISTORY AND STORY IN WITCHCRAFT TRIALS
Texts of Authority: Witchcraft Accusations and the Demonstration of Truth in Early Modern England; P. Rushton
Understanding Witchcraft; M. Gibson
Witches and Witnesses in Old and New England; M. Gaskill
Sounds of Silence: Fairies and Incest in Scottish Witchcraft Stories; D. Purkiss
PART 2: CONTEXTS OF WITCHCRAFT
Towards a Politics of Witchcraft in Early Modern England; P. Elmer
The Religion of Reginald Scot; D. Wootton
Hell Upon Earth or the Language of the Playhouse; J. Barry
PART 3: HOW CONTEMPORARIES READ WITCHCRAFT
Circling the Devil: Witch-doctors and Magic Healers in Early Modern Lorraine; R. Briggs
Witchcraft as Metaphor: Infanticide and its Translations in Aragon in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; M. Tausiet
Witchcraft and Forensic Medicine in Seventeenth-Century Germany; T. Robisheaux
Reasoning with Unreason: Visions, Witchcraft and Madness in Early Modern England; K. Hodgkin
Index.
Product details
| Published | Nov 16 2000 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 241 |
| ISBN | 9780333793480 |
| Imprint | Red Globe Press |
| Dimensions | Not specified |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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