{"id":1351,"date":"2026-10-22T18:49:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T18:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pennpress.org\/journals\/?page_id=1351"},"modified":"2026-10-22T20:14:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T20:14:59","slug":"mrw-20th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.pennpress.org\/journals\/mrw-20th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft: 20th Anniversary Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Theories of \u201cmagic\u201d are ephemeral as mayflies and idiosyncratic as the scholars who advance them: they rarely last and they never gain wide accep\u00adtance. And yet, twenty years after its debut as the inaugural essay in the very first issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft<\/a><\/em>, Michael D. Bailey\u2019s \u201cMeanings of Magic\u201d continues to be cited widely. One suspects that Bailey\u2019s essay has held up so well, in part, because he defines the category \u201cmagic\u201d by emphasizing its blurry boundaries, its protean parameters, its ineradicable ambivalence. Among its other possible substantive attributes, psychological functions, or sociopolitical instrumentalizations, \u201cmagic\u201d is, definitionally, something argued about, disagreed upon, contested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 20th anniversary special issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft<\/em> makes no attempt to resolve the definitional debates around \u201cmagic\u201d: we won\u2019t 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 \u201cthe meanings of magic\u201d for particular scholars, disciplines, traditions, and communities. As a whole, this collection aims to broaden the conversation about the meanings of magic, honoring Bailey\u2019s own intentions: \u201cmy main point was to open up rather than resolve\u201d the question of what \u201cmagic\u201d means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cmagic\u201d explored in times, places, and disciplinary conversations that have long characterized our journal\u2019s offerings. In addition, as has been our journal\u2019s 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 \u201cmagic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Ordering Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To purchase your copy of the 20th anniversary special issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft<\/em> for $25 plus shipping, please contact Penn Press Journals at journals@pobox.upenn.edu<\/a>. Please indicate your name, address, and the desired number of issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theories of \u201cmagic\u201d are ephemeral as mayflies and idiosyncratic as the scholars who advance them: they rarely last and they never gain wide accep\u00adtance. 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