COURSE DESCRIPTION

 

This course investigates how the supernatural (demons, witches, and magic) have been accepted, understood, and practiced in a range of historical and social contexts. The purpose of the seminar is to trace the history of key supernatural motifs and themes; to find out a) from where they have come, b) what role they played in society and c) how the supernatural is seen today.

We will, at times, adopt a case-study approach and work in class will be based on the analysis of primary sources and discussion of secondary sources. This seminar takes up a series of interesting questions through weekly discussions led by you. For example, questions may range from: how have supernatural phenomena been interpreted and understood in various historical cultures? Through what practices have people drawn on—or sought to avoid or ameliorate—the power of the supernatural? How have people distinguished religion from magic, and knowledge from superstition, in different historical cultures?  How can folklore, the human imagination, and fantasy, which have often been excluded as legitimate sources for knowing about past societies, actually help us understand a great deal about those societies? What have been the effects of supernatural experiences and beliefs on history in a broad sense?

EXPECTATIONS

This class is a high level, reading intensive seminar. Each week you will need to prepare certain readings before class, which we will discuss in detail. We will also examine a variety of textual, visual, and oral primary sources collectively in order to become familiar with the data historians use in order to study popular culture. Over the course of the semester, students will be expected to conduct original research; informed by our collective readings and conversations, this research will combine primary sources and scholarly literature to illuminate further one aspect of the supernatural. This research, along with our engagement of contemporary scholarship and primary sources, will enable us to come to provisional answers to the course’s guiding questions, which remain productively unresolved among the scholarly community.

 

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this course, students will have

• developed their knowledge and understanding of key historical events, processes, and themes related to (the European) beliefs about the divine, demonic, and supernatural
• developed their ability to frame historical questions and think critically about the significance of and connections among historical events and developments
• strengthened their analytical and critical reading skills, including analyzing both primary and secondary sources
• developed their ability to express their historical analyses and syntheses in writing and orally more clearly, concisely, coherently, and elegantly.