Conjuring Identity: Rethinking Magic in the Global Middle Ages. Volume Editors: Dr. Kersti Francis (Boston University), Dr. Misho Ishikawa (New York University), and Dr. Anne Le (University of Notre Dame)

Taking a broad approach to “magic,” the proposed volume explores premodern identity formation through narratives that test the very boundaries of the real. The collection intervenes in the burgeoning fields of medieval magic, identity studies, and the global Middle Ages by examining magic as a transcultural literary aesthetic closely linked to identity production. Magic, widely conceived, also offers scholars and students of the Middle Ages a methodology for reading against the Eurocentrism that has thus far dominated the discussion of medieval magic. While the collection resists the adoption of an abstracted, universal understanding of “magic,” the essays, when read together, assert a common structure to the use of magic in premodern texts: magic signals an aesthetic terrain that allows writers (and readers) to question not only nature and the natural world, but the normative modes of being that have been interpolated as natural.

We are strongly committed to the global scope of this project, and we especially seek case studies originating outside of Europe and the Mediterranean roughly between 500 CE to 1600 CE (e.g. Mesoamerican magical materiality, pre-colonial Ghanaian witchcraft, māyā within and beyond the Vedas). While this period generally corresponds to “the European Middle Ages,” this volume seeks to expand the geographies considered medieval through carefully-contextualized global examples. This comparative mode allows us in turn to question the very meaning of the “Middle Ages” itself. 

Abstracts no longer than 300 words are due by September 20, 2024.

We welcome contributions from early career scholars and advanced graduate students.