Marion Gibson

Witchcraft (eBook, ePUB)

A History in Thirteen Trials

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Salem, King James VI, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch hunts and witch trials sounds antiquated, relics of an unenlightened and brutal age. However, 'witch hunt' is heard often in the present-day media, and the misogyny it is rooted in is all too familiar today. A woman was prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 1944. This book uses thirteen significant trials to explore the history of witchcraft and witch hunts. As well as investigating some of the most famous trials from the middle ages to the 18th century, it takes us in new and surprising directions. It shows us how witchcraft was decriminalised in the 18th century, only to be reimagined by the 1780s Romantic radicals. We will learn how it evolved from being seen as a threat to Christianity to perceived as gendered persecution, and how trials against chieftains in Africa stoked anger against colonial rule. Significantly, the book tells the stories of the victims - women, such as Helena Scheuberin and Joan Wright - whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men, such as King James VI and I and "Witchfinder General" Matthew Hopkins, who hounded them. While this will be a history of witchcraft, the subject cannot be consigned to the history books. Hundreds of people, mostly women, are tried and killed as witches every year in Africa. 'WITCH HUNT!' is as common in our language today as ever it was, and witches are still on trial across the world.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon + Schuster LLC
• Seitenzahl: 352
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. Juni 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781398508521
• Artikelnr.: 65246156

Autorenporträt

Marion Gibson is Professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of seven academic books on witches in history and literature: Reading Witchcraft; Possession, Puritanism, and Print; Witchcraft Myths in American Culture; Imagining the Pagan Past; Rediscovering Renaissance Witchcraft; Witchcraft: The Basics and, with Jo Esra, Shakespeare's Demonology. Marion has also edited five books for publishers such as Routledge and Ashgate, published around twenty chapters and articles, and she is General Editor of the series Elements in Magic for Cambridge University Press. Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials is her most recent work.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction; Chapter One The early modern context: a case study of early modern Britain; Chapter Two The seventeenth and early eighteenth century context: America as the major case study; Chapter Three Witchcraft in early modern literature: "the witchcraft renaissance"; Chapter Four Witchcraft Studies; Chapter Five Witchcraft Today: Religious Redefinitions; Chapter Six Reinventing the good witch; Further Study Reading List; Index

Rezensionen

'These stories of witchcraft, true and vividly told, demonstrate the potent reality of belief in evil and how in any era or place fear can be weaponised and marginal people, mostly women, labelled as wicked and dangerous. Together they comprise not just a history of witchcraft but a cautionary tale of the uncomfortably human habits of paranoia and persecution' Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches

'Marion Gibson is one of the nation's finest scholars of the literature of witchcraft, in the broadest sense, and this book represents a crown to the decades of research and authorship which have won her that distinction. Like all she has done before, it is original, accessible, and has a wonderfully wide sweep.'

Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, UK

'Marion Gibson offers an outstanding introduction to witchcraft and to the texts that have created and shaped our understanding of witchcraft over time. She deftly unpacks early modern demonologies and trial records, as well as plays and poetry, providing expert guidance on how to read these sources and decipher the depictions of witchcraft they convey. She also examines trends in modern scholarship and in modern popular culture that have shaped and reshaped the notion of what a witch could be. This book offers a truly interdisciplinary blend of history, literature, and cultural studies.'

Michael D. Bailey, Iowa State University, USA

"This is an excellent introduction to witchcraft studies."

Dawn Hutchinson, Christopher Newport University