RELST 4404

Magic and Demonic Creatures between Reformation and Enlightenment

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2018-2019.

This course examines beliefs in magic and magical creatures, looking at how the occult organized all aspects of early modern life.  Scientists believed that magic could help them create gold, doctors practiced blood magic, and court magistrates sentenced Jews or elderly women to death for allegedly performing devilish rituals on small children. Through the course readings, both primary and secondary, we will analyze how the superstitious was mobilized within struggles between Catholics and Protestants, the nobility and the peasantry, and within emergent Enlightenment philosophy.  In particular we will discuss why witches or werewolves were imagined (and hunted) in the period, what that can tell us about the cultural climate of the time, but also how their meaning could morph into the familiar horror stapes of our own world.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS)

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