ORGANIZER:

Yuval Harari, Ben-Gurion University

 

Scholars from around the world will come together for an intensive joint study of the phenomenon of grimoires in different cultural environments in the history of the West. Books of magic from antiquity to our day will be at the focus of the conference and will be studied from various points of view: their types, patterns, contents and designs; their place between popular and learned knowledge; their role in the transmission of knowledge within and between religious-cultural communities; their evidence concerning emic approaches to magic, its boundaries and its relation to other fields of knowledge; their social and cultural contexts and so forth.

For the first time experts on magic texts and cultures in Antiquity, early and medieval Christianity, Judaism (past to present), Islam, the Renaissance, the modern West, and new Age movements will jointly discuss the special professional genre/s of scripted magic knowledge.

 

Program >

 

SPEAKERS:

Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, Sweden
Alessia Bellusci, Israel
Helen Berger, USA
Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony
Gideon Bohak, Israel
Yossi Chajes, Israel
Claire Fanger, USA
Peter Forshaw, Netherlands
Richard Gordon, Germany
Yuval Harari, Israel
Ronald Hutton, USA
Moshe Idel, Israel
Richard Kieckhefer, USA
Frank Klaassen, Canada
Adam Klin-Oron, Israel
Benedek Láng, Hungary
Reimund Leicht, Israel
Dan Levene, USA
Matthew Morgenstern, Israel
Eliezer Papo, Israel
Joeseph E. Sanzo, Israel
Andrea Barbara Schmidt, Belgium
Shaul Shaked, Israel
Michael Swartz, USA