Daughters of Hecate
Women and Magic in the Ancient World
Published on 20. November 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
552 pages
978-0-19-534271-0 (ISBN)
Description
Daughters of Hecate unites for the first time research on the problem of gender and magic in three ancient Mediterranean societies: early Judaism, Christianity, and Graeco-Roman culture. The book illuminates the gendering of ancient magic by approaching the topic from three distinct disciplinary perspectives: literary stereotyping, the social application of magic discourse, and material culture.
The authors probe the foundations of, processes, and motivations behind gendered stereotypes, beginning with Western culture's earliest associations of women and magic in the Bible and Homer's Odyssey. Daughters of Hecate provides a nuanced exploration of the topic while avoiding reductive approaches. In fact, the essays in this volume uncover complexities and counter-discourses that challenge, rather than reaffirm, many gendered stereotypes taken for granted and reified by most modern scholarship.
By combining critical theoretical methods with research into literary and material evidence, Daughters of Hecate interrogates a false association that has persisted from antiquity, to early modern witch hunts, to the present day.
The authors probe the foundations of, processes, and motivations behind gendered stereotypes, beginning with Western culture's earliest associations of women and magic in the Bible and Homer's Odyssey. Daughters of Hecate provides a nuanced exploration of the topic while avoiding reductive approaches. In fact, the essays in this volume uncover complexities and counter-discourses that challenge, rather than reaffirm, many gendered stereotypes taken for granted and reified by most modern scholarship.
By combining critical theoretical methods with research into literary and material evidence, Daughters of Hecate interrogates a false association that has persisted from antiquity, to early modern witch hunts, to the present day.
Reviews / Votes
This impressive collection challenges the seemingly common-sense association between women and magic. Drawing on literary and material evidence from across the ancient Mediterranean world, it powerfully demonstrates that the gendering of magic is neither natural nor universal, but is conditioned by the dynamics of local conflict and given form by historically specific taxonomies of knowledge. * Ra'anan Boustan, author of From Martyr to Mystic *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
932 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-534271-0 (9780195342710)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
02/2015
Oxford University Press Inc
€227.60
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
10/2014
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€39.49
Available for download
E-Book
10/2014
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€39.49
Available for download
Persons
Kimberly B. Stratton is an associate professor in the College of Humanities at Carleton University. She holds a B.A. in English and Religion from Barnard College, an M.T.S. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in the history of religions in late antiquity from Columbia University. She has also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research covers the fields of early Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, and Greco-Roman religion, focusing on the dynamics of identity formation, discourse, and social construction at the intersection of those ancient cultures.
Dayna S. Kalleres is an associate professor in the Program for the Study of Religion and the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She did her Ph.D. in program for the History of Early Christianity at Brown University; prior to that, she received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Classics at Indiana University. Her research covers the fields of Greco-Roman Religions and Early to late antique
Christianities; her focal interests include magic and religion, ritual studies, demonology and the urban sphere.
Dayna S. Kalleres is an associate professor in the Program for the Study of Religion and the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She did her Ph.D. in program for the History of Early Christianity at Brown University; prior to that, she received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Classics at Indiana University. Her research covers the fields of Greco-Roman Religions and Early to late antique
Christianities; her focal interests include magic and religion, ritual studies, demonology and the urban sphere.
Content
Preface ; 1. Interrogating the Magic-Gender Connection - Kimberly B. Stratton ; Part I. Fiction and Fantasy: Gendering Magic in Literature ; 2. From Goddess to Hag: The Greek and the Roman Witch in Classical Literature - Barbette Stanley Spaeth ; 3. "The Most Worthy of Women is a Mistress of Magic": Women as Witches and Ritual Practitioners in 1 Enoch and Rabbinic Sources - Rebecca Lesses ; 4. Gendering Heavenly Secrets? Women, Angels, and the Problem of Misogyny and "Magic" - Annette Yoshiko Reed ; 5. Magic, Abjection, and Gender in Roman Literature - Kimberly B. Stratton ; Part II. Gender and Magic Discourse in Practice ; 6. Magic Accusations Against Women in Tacitus's Annals - Elizabeth Ann Pollard ; 7. Drunken Hags with Amulets and Prostitutes with Erotic Spells: The Re-Feminization of Magic in Late Antique Christian Homilies - Dayna S. Kalleres ; 8. The Bishop, the Pope, and the Prophetess: Rival Ritual Experts in Third-Century Cappadocia - Ayse Tuzlak ; 9. Living Images of the Divine: Female Theurgists in Late Antiquity - Nicola Denzey Lewis ; 10. Sorceresses and Sorcerers in Early Christian Tours of Hell - Kirsti Barrett Copeland ; Part III. Gender, Magic, and the Material Record ; 11. The Social Context of Women's Erotic Magic in Antiquity - David Frankfurter ; 12. Cheating Women: Curse Tablets and Roman Wives - Pauline Ripat ; 13. Saffron, Spices, and Sorceresses: Magic Bowls and the Bavli - Yaakov Elman ; 14. Victimology or: How to Deal With Untimely Death - Fritz Graf ; 15. A Gospel Amulet for Joannia (P.Oxy. VIII 1151) - AnneMarie Luijendijk