The Centre for Magic and Esotericism
The Centre for Magic and Esotericism
This page highlights events happening beyond the Centre for Magic and Esotericism. Check back regularly for updates, and please get in touch if there is an event you would like to share!
7th of October, online
5:00-6:30PM
SUMMARY
Despite his large and â in his time â well-received oeuvre, the Egyptian scholar Aydamir al-JildakÄ« (fl. middle of the 14th century) so far is known to specialists of Islamic alchemy only. Yet, Manfred Ullmann, writing in 1972, insisted that he was one of the âgreatest scholars of the Islamic cultural sphereâ. In his natural encyclopaedia entitled Durrat al-ghawwÄáčŁ (âThe diverâs pearlâ), al-JildakÄ« treats the whole sublunar nature, from humans to animals, plants, and minerals. Perhaps following Qurâanic concepts of sign (Äya), he also considers languages and scripts as part of the ordered natural world. This paper will offer an introduction to al-JildakÄ« and his concepts of nature and culture and thus into concepts of post-classical Arabic science.
Regula Forster (PhD Zurich 2005) is Professor of Islamic History and Culture at the University of TĂŒbingen (Germany). Previously, she has held professorships at Freie UniversitĂ€t Berlin (Germany) and at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). She has published on both German medieval and Arabic literature, including Wissensvermittlung im GesprĂ€ch. Eine Studie zu klassisch-arabischen Dialogen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), Das Geheimnis der Geheimnisse. Die arabischen und deutschen Fassungen des pseudo-aris-totelischen Sirr al-asrÄr / Secretum secretorum (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006), and Methoden mittelalterlicher arabischer QurâÄnexegese am Beispiel von Q 53, 1-18 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2001).
Attendence is free. You can register to attend via Zoom here
Call for papers deadline: 1st November 2024
Conference: 9 â 11 April 2025, York
SESSION ABSTRACT
When the art, visual culture, and creative practices of the ecological imaginationare informed by esotericism, they reveal rejected knowledge and recover enchanted relationships. In recent years scholarship has expanded significantly in the fields of art and ecology, and art and esotericism, but intersections between all three categories remain underexplored.
Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm have noted one of the analytically most powerful capabilities of the concept of the esoteric is its ability to shine light on the âbetwixt and betweenâ and phenomena that transgress seemingly impermeable borders. Esoteric thinking resists boundaries, linearities of time and progress, and conformity to anthropocentrism. Esotericism has long held the imagination as an important faculty to transcend the mundane and the human, the everyday and the present. Similarly, environmental philosophers have evoked the imagination to negotiate and conceive, simulate and project increasingly complex world systems. As Diana Villanueva-Romero, Lorraine Kerslake and Carmen Flys-Junquera have demonstrated, artworks promote environmental awareness through the exercise of imaginative processes, paving the way for encounters of affective knowledge between us and âotherâ – the âmore-than-humanâ. With the creative potential and possibilities of these mutual imaginative forces – both esoteric and ecological – artists explore alternative entanglements with the natural and supernatural, visualising the interconnectivity and reciprocity between planes, scales and beings.
What are the visual manifestations and wider implications of the ecological imagination when it unites with esotericism? How are alternative entanglements conceived, envisioned and given form? This session invites papers to investigate the intersections of art, esotericism and ecology in their broadest sense, including transhistorical and global perspectives. In addition to academic papers, we welcome interdisciplinary approaches and other presentation formats from artists, ecologists and esoteric practitioners.
Session Convenors
Michelle Foot,University of Edinburgh,Michelle.Foot@ed.ac.uk
Natasha V. Moody, University of Plymouth / Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices, natashavmoody@gmail.com
To offer a paper:
Please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenors, details above.
Provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 20-minute paper (or alternative presentation format), your name and institutional affiliation (if any).
Please make sure the title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper because the title is what appears online, in social media and in the digital programme.
Deadline for submissions:Â 1 November 2024
1st November 2024, online
7-9pm GMT / 2-4pm EST
Join Dr Dorka TamĂĄs online for a fascinating seminar in a celebration of Halloween and witches in the music of Taylor Swift
SUMMARY
Participants will be provided reading materials on the history of the witch-hunt as well as given texts that help to understand further the significance of Swiftâs witchcraft imagery, including demons, exorcism, burning witches, ritual magic, Tarot, and contextualised within American history, literature, and politics.
After some introductory discussion on the topic, we will closely read her lyrics and analyse the visuals from her tour and music videos.
Tickets to this event are available here.
The time and date of the seminar is 7-9 pm GMT or 2 pm EST on 1 November 2024. A link for the online event will be provided beforehand.
The online seminar is hosted by Dr Dorka TamĂĄs, Lecturer and researcher in twentieth-century literature, post-war American poetry, modernism, magic and witches from Shakespeare to twentieth-century literature and popular culture, and environmental humanities.
2nd November 2024 Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB
1:30PM – 7:30PM
In collaboration with FULGUR PRESS(Opens in new window), the Warburg Institute is pleased to host a special one-day symposium to celebrate the first English publication of AndrĂ© Bretonâs LâArt magique.
SUMMARY
What is âmagic artâ? In 1953, AndrĂ© Breton, founder of the surrealist movement, was invited by a prestigious French publisher to explore answers to this question. His resulting analysis is wide-ranging and evocative. Beginning with a literary review of magic and art, Breton draws upon Novalis and Baudelaire before considering the prehistoric rock art of Spain and France, the native art of the Pacific Northwest, the magical grimoires and alchemical symbolism of the Middle Ages, and the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Antoine Caron, Paolo Uccello, Gustav Moreau, Paul Gauguin and the Surrealists. Through these and other diverse sources, Breton traces a mystery that lies at the heart of our timeless fascination with otherness and seeks to place surrealism as a successor to a magical sensibility that began with art itself.
This one-day symposium will explore the story behind the development and publication of the 1957 edition, an overview of Bretonâs understanding of âmagic artâ perspectives from contemporary artists on magic art, and a round table discussion on the relevance of magic art today.
Hosts: Professor Felicity Gee (University of Exeter), Robert Shehu-Ansell (Fulgur Press)
Participants: Dr Will Atkin (Courtauld Institute), Jesse Bransford (NYU Steinhardt), Elijah Burger, Professor Judith Noble (Arts University Plymouth), and Nooka Shepherd.
Attendance fees:
ÂŁ15 Standard
ÂŁ10 concessions (students and unwaged)
Buy tickets here. Ticket prices includes refreshments and a drinks reception.
11th November 2024, Nottingham Trent University
CALL FOR PAPERS
The folklore of the East of England is as multifarious as the landscapes and communities that created it. It captures the changing fenlands, waves of settlement, war, the tribulations of fishing and farming, historical and religious understanding and interpretation, and moments in the lives of common people. Yet for all the folk tales that are still retold, many more are overlooked by or unknown to folklorists
and storytellers.
A call for papers is now open for a hybrid symposium on Lincolnshire Folk Tales and Folklore(s) of Place. It is organised as part of the Lincolnshire Folk Tales project, funded by the AHRC at Nottingham Trent University. The symposium is free to attend for all who register, and travel bursaries of up to ÂŁ50 are available to a limited number of participants, based on need. The symposium will take place at Nottingham Trent University (and on Teams), on April 11th 2025.
Please send an abstract of up to 200 words, ideally on a Microsoft Word document, to lincolnshirefolktalesproject@gmail.com by 12pm on Friday 31 January 2025, along with a short bio of up to 60 words (on the same Word document), using âLINCOLNSHIRE FOLK TALES SYMPOSIUMâ in capitals as the email subject line.