Feeling the Magic: Affect and Embodiment

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Societas Magica

Organizer Name

Marla Segol

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. at Buffalo

Presider Name

Claire Fanger

Presider Affiliation

Rice Univ.

Paper Title 1

Feeling the Magic: A Model of Affect and Power in Three Late Antique Hebrew Texts

Presenter 1 Name

Marla Segol

Paper Title 2

The Sorcerer, the Maiden, and the Snake: Sex, Magic, and Misogyny in the First Continuation of Perceval

Presenter 2 Name

Laurence Erussard

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Paper Title 3

The Changing Face of Wickedness: Affect and Complexion in Manfredi's Il Perche

Presenter 3 Name

Kira L. Robison

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Tennessee-Chattanooga

Start Date

11-5-2019 3:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard 205

Description

This panel theorizes the role of affect in the practice of magic. For example, what sort of affect is required to perform magic? How do feelings and emotions figure into the efficacy of healing rituals? Thomas Tweed argues that “Religions… intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and superhuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries.” Donovan Schaefer says religions cultivate and mobilize affects in the service of their goals, both in an embodied subconscious form (affect) and in the context of verbalized, conscious and social iteration and interaction (feeling and emotion). Magic, as perhaps another mode of religious ritual performance, operates similarly and this panel explores various narratives of embodied experience, paying special attention to their use in magical practice. David Porreca