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Professors say they’ve seen growing academic interest in magic, occult

Universities are offering a variety of classes on witchcraft and magic this fall, including courses that will examine tarot cards, create spellbooks, and analyze why people accuse Taylor Swift of sorcery.

And professors say they have noticed a growing academic interest in the topic.

“The number of books published by serious scholars on witchcraft since the 1970s is just incredible, it’s like a tsunami,” Yale University Professor Carlos Eire told The College Fix recently via Zoom.

Eire, who teaches religion and studies the history of the supernatural, said most students know it’s just fantasy. But he also acknowledged there are some who may take witchcraft seriously and would be attracted to such courses.

He connected the increased interest to the popularity of supernatural books and shows like the Harry Potter series, “Interview with a Vampire,” and Deborah Harkness’s book-turned Amazon Prime series “A Discovery of Witches.”

Eire said he does not have any concerns about the growth in academic courses on magic and related topics as long as the focus is academic.

“There is some intellectual or scholarly dimension missing if it’s just teaching people spells,” he said.

Spellbooks, ghosts, Taylor Swift, and ‘gender issues’ 

Yale is one of a number of universities offering classes on the topic this fall.

Its fall class, “History of the Night” will “examine how the night became the abode of the ghost, the devil, the witch, and the dead,” according to the course description.

At Duke University, a first-year writing course called “Radical Magic,” will analyze why magic and the supernatural “have been coded as feminine, irrational, and sinister.” Students also will discuss why people accuse Taylor Swift of witchcraft.

Course instructor Cheryl Spinner told The Fix via email her class will look at footage of Swift’s Eras Tour and “use gender and feminist studies to parse out what’s really going on with these accusations.”

Spinner said she had productive discussions in previous classes about the pop star, including the lyrics from one of her songs: “I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street,” which Swift sings on a moving stage that appears to make her float.

The class also will examine the literacy quality of tarot cards, spells, and incantations. Their final project will be to create a grimoire, or spellbook that records “magical insights and oral traditions that might otherwise be forgotten,” according to Spinner.

“Students do readings for each other, and in doing so they are training their brains to make connections between cards, to create complex stories that add up to a totality,” Spinner told The Fix via email.

Spinner said she is not teaching her students to predict the future but to be better thinkers and writers.

Georgetown University also is offering several courses on the subject this fall, The Fix found in a search of its course catalog.

One, “Witches in History, Literature, and Film,” will examine the representation of the witch in the context of history, literature, and film, including the Grimm brothers fairy tales and Disney films, according to the course description.

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.

“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 within its ranks who worked for the abolishment of witch persecutions,” Wiegert said.

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. “Meaning we can compare how very different individuals and groups were writing about magic and what that tells us about them and how context shapes text.”

Griffin said 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 undermine 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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