Theories of “magic” are ephemeral as mayflies and idiosyncratic as the scholars who advance them: they rarely last and they never gain wide acceptance. And yet, twenty years after its debut as the inaugural essay in the very first issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Michael D. Bailey’s “Meanings of Magic” continues to be cited widely. One suspects that Bailey’s essay has held up so well, in part, because he defines the category “magic” by emphasizing its blurry boundaries, its protean parameters, its ineradicable ambivalence. Among its other possible substantive attributes, psychological functions, or sociopolitical instrumentalizations, “magic” is, definitionally, something argued about, disagreed upon, contested.
The 20th anniversary special issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft makes no attempt to resolve the definitional debates around “magic”: we won’t try to stabilize this unstable category. Instead, to celebrate our founding editor Michael D. Bailey and the decades of magic studies he has done so much to shape, we offer a smorgasbord of inquiries into “the meanings of magic” for particular scholars, disciplines, traditions, and communities. As a whole, this collection aims to broaden the conversation about the meanings of magic, honoring Bailey’s own intentions: “my main point was to open up rather than resolve” the question of what “magic” means.
In that spirit, we have sought out new voices to swell, but thus also to change with their new harmonies, the chorus of scholarship on magic. In this issue you will find the meaning of “magic” explored in times, places, and disciplinary conversations that have long characterized our journal’s offerings. In addition, as has been our journal’s intention from the beginning, the present collection includes topics, disciplines, and theoretical approaches that have too infrequently been included in conversations about the meanings of “magic.”
Ordering Information
To purchase your copy of the 20th anniversary special issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft for $25 plus shipping, please contact Penn Press Journals at journals@pobox.upenn.edu. Please indicate your name, address, and the desired number of issues.