The Magician's Patrons and Clients

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Societas Magica

Organizer Name

Frank Klaassen

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Saskatchewan

Presider Name

Claire Fanger

Presider Affiliation

Rice Univ.

Paper Title 1

Creating a Market for Magic: The Magician-Client Relationship as Discursive Space

Presenter 1 Name

Jason Roberts

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Texas-Austin

Paper Title 2

Democratizing Divinity: The "Mithras Liturgy" and the Ancient Egyptian pḥ-nṯr Oracle in Late Antique Greco-Roman Egypt

Presenter 2 Name

Mark Roblee

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst

Paper Title 3

A Diverse but Familiar Clientele: Magicians and their Clients in Late Medieval Paris

Presenter 3 Name

Brian Forman

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Northwestern Univ.

Paper Title 4

"Of Counsel to Get It": Nine Men and the Mixindale Treasure

Presenter 4 Name

Frank Klaassen, Sharon Wright

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Univ. of Saskatchewan, St. Thomas More College

Start Date

13-5-2016 1:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1140

Description

Historians of witchcraft and magic customarily focus upon practitioners and their intellectual or social context rather than upon their patrons and customers. Those latter fostered both the practice of, and also writing about, magic, they played a crucial role in shaping it, and they formed a fundamental element in its social context. Often we know about magicians only because of legal issues extending from their relationship with clients. The session thus concerns magic both as economic and social currency and the peculiar role of those who paid for or supported in other ways its practice and study. -David Porreca