Emotions in the History of Witchcraft

by Laura Kounine (Editor), Michael Ostling (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together leading historians, anthropologists, and religionists, this volume examines the unbridled passions of witchcraft from the Middle Ages to the present. Witchcraft is an intensely emotional crime, rooted in the belief that envy and spite can cause illness or even death. Witch-trials in turn are emotionally driven by the grief of alleged victims and by the fears of magistrates and demonologists.

With examples ranging from Russia to New England, Germany to Cameroon, chapters cover the representation of emotional witches in demonology and art; the gendering of witchcraft as female envy or male rage; witchcraft as a form of bullying and witchcraft accusation as a form of therapy; love magic and demon-lovers; and the affective memorialization of the “Burning Times” among contemporary Pagan feminists. Wide-ranging and methodologically diverse, the book is appropriate for scholars of witchcraft, gender, and emotions; for graduate or undergraduate courses, and for the interested general reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137529022
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	03/02/2017
Series:	Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions
Edition description:	1st ed. 2016
Pages:	321
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Laura Kounine is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sussex, and was previously a research fellow at the Centre for the History of Emotions, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. She is the co-editor of Cultures of Conflict Resolution in Early Modern Europe (2016) and author of the forthcoming Imagining the Witch: Emotions, Gender and Selfhood in Early Modern Germany.

Michael Ostling is Honors Faculty Fellow at Arizona State University, USA, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author of Between the Devil and the Host (2011) and editor of the forthcoming Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits (2017).

Table of Contents

1. ‘Unbridled Passion’: Witchcraft in the History of Emotion by Michael Ostling and Laura Kounine.- Part I: In Representation.- 2. Fear and Devotion in the Writings of Heinrich Institoris by Tamar Herzig.- 3. Satanic Fury: Depictions of the Devil’s Rage in Nicolas Remy’s Daemonolatria by Laura Kounine.- 4. The Cruelty of Witchcraft: the Drawings of Jacques de Gheyn the Younger by Charles Zika.- 5. Tyrannical Beasts: Male Witchcraft in Early Modern English Culture by E. J. Kent.- Part II.- 6. The Witch in the Courtroom: Torture and the Representations of Emotion by Rita Voltmer.- 7. ‘So they will love me and pine for me’: Intimacy and Distance in Early Modern Russian Magic by Valerie Kivelson.- 8. Emotion and Affect in Lorraine Witchcraft Trials by Robin Briggs.- 9. Speaking of Love in the Polish Witch-Trials by Michael Ostling.- 10. Over-Familiar Spirits: The Bonds between English Witches and their Devils byCharlotte-Rose Millar.- Part III.- 11. Bullying, the Neurobiology of Emotional Aggression, and the Experience of Witchcraft by Edward Bever.- 12. Witchcraft and the Dangers of Intimacy: Africa and Europe by Peter Geschiere.- 13. Psychotic Reactions? Witchcraft, The Devil and Mental Illness by Sarah Ferber.- Part IV.- 14. In Memorium Maleficarum: Feminist and Pagan Mobilizations of the Burning Times by Laurel Zwissler.- 15. Afterword: Passions in Perspective by Malcolm Gaskill.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A pioneering as well as profound collection of essays written by leaders in the field who connect the study of witchcraft to cutting edge approaches to the history of emotions. I recommend it to everyone interested in the period.” (Professor Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge, UK, author of “The Astronomer and the Witch”)

“The contributors to this volume have boldly charted out new and exciting approaches to witchcraft and the emotions. While ranging across familiar topics like demonologies, trials and comparative treatments of witchcraft, the contributors draw prudently and creatively on insights from anthropology, the neurosciences and evolutionary psychology, feminist theory, and the new theoretical approaches to the history of emotions. In bringing witchcraft studies into the new history of emotions these scholars show emotions not just as interior feelings or cerebral textual and rhetorical devices, but as disturbing and violent actions. This ismulti-disciplinary work at its most creative and incisive. A work that will instantly become the starting point for all future discussions of witchcraft and the emotions.” (Professor Thomas Robisheaux, Duke University, USA, author of “The Last Witch of Langenburg”)

Editorial Reviews

Emotions in the History of Witchcraft is a collection of unusual quality and significance that successfully unites two hitherto separate fields to the enormous enrichment of both. … The collection is essential reading for anyone working within the new sub-discipline of the history of the emotions or the more venerable and ever-vibrant field of witchcraft studies.” (James Brown, European History Quarterly, Vol. 47 (4), 2017)

From the Publisher