Astrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe PDF Download

Author: Paola Zambelli
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040239358
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Astrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe brings together ten of Paola Zambelli's papers on the subject, four of which are published in English for the first time. The papers in Part I of this volume deal with theories: the ideas of astrology and magic held by Renaissance thinkers; astrologers' ideas on universal history and its cycles; i.e. catastrophes and rebirths, theories; and myths regarding the spontaneous generation of man himself. Part II focuses on the role of astrologers in Renaissance society. As political counsellors, courtiers, and academics, their ideas were diffused and appreciated in both popular and high culture. Part III looks at the Great Conjunction of 1524 and on the long and extended debate surrounding it, which would not have been possible prior to Gutenberg, since astrologers printed numberless booklets (full of religious and political innuendo) predicting the catastrophe - flood, as well as earthquake or fire - foreseen for February 1524 (which, in the event, proved to be a month of extraordinary mild weather). Part IV reprints some review-articles of twentieth century scholars whose writing has contributed to our understanding of the historical problems concerning magic and other connected debates.

Author: Maurizio Meloni
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135168938X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
During the twentieth century, genes were considered the controlling force of life processes, and the transfer of DNA the definitive explanation for biological heredity. Such views shaped the politics of human heredity: in the eugenic era, controlling heredity meant intervening in the distribution of "good" and "bad" genes. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, this centrality of genes has been challenged by a number of "postgenomic" disciplines. The rise of epigenetics in particular signals a shift from notions of biological fixedness to ideas of plasticity and "impressionability" of biological material. This book investigates a long history of the beliefs about the plasticity of human biology, starting with ancient medicine, and analyses the biopolitical techniques required to govern such permeability. It looks at the emergence of the modern body of biomedicine as a necessary displacement or possibly reconfiguration of earlier plastic views. Finally, it analyses the returning of plasticity to contemporary postgenomic views and argues that postgenomic plasticity is neither a modernistic plasticity of instrumental management of the body nor a postmodernist celebration of potentialities. It is instead a plasticity that disrupts clear boundaries between openness and determination, individual and community, with important implications for notions of risk, responsibility and intervention.

Author: Sophie Page
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317042751
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

Author: Richard Kieckhefer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108861121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
How was magic practiced in medieval times? How did it relate to the diverse beliefs and practices that characterized this fascinating period? This much revised and expanded new edition of Magic in the Middle Ages surveys the growth and development of magic in medieval Europe. It takes into account the extensive new developments in the history of medieval magic in recent years, featuring new material on angel magic, the archaeology of magic, and the magical efficacy of words and imagination. Richard Kieckhefer shows how magic represents a crossroads in medieval life and culture, examining its relationship and relevance to religion, science, philosophy, art, literature, and politics. In surveying the different types of magic that were used, the kinds of people who practiced magic, and the reasoning behind their beliefs, Kieckhefer shows how magic served as a point of contact between the popular and elite classes, how the reality of magical beliefs is reflected in the fiction of medieval literature, and how the persecution of magic and witchcraft led to changes in the law.

Author: Paul Colilli
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498505961
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of the world’s most important living philosophers, has been the object of much scrutiny. Yet, there is one dimension of his thought that remains unexamined by scholars: the presence of the ancient science of astrology in his writings. This book, the first of its kind, identifies the astrological elements and explains the implications of their usage by Agamben. In so doing, this study challenges us to imagine Agamben’s thought in a radically new light. A critical account of the presence of astrology and related themes in Agamben’s writings, ranging from the earlier works to the more recent publications, illustrates that the astrological signature constitutes a mode of philosophical archaeology that allows for an enhanced understanding of concepts that are central to his works, such as potentiality, the signature, bare life and biopolitics.

Author: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195320999
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This introduction to the Western esoteric traditions offers a concise overview of their historical development. The author explores these traditions, from their roots in Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, and Gnosticism in the early Christian era up to their reverberations in modern day's scientific paradigms.

Author: Günther Oestmann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110185454
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
North American and European scholars examine formal approaches to such features of poetry as rhyme, alliteration, and meter, investigating such questions as what rules govern formal elements of poetic language in particular traditions or poets, which line types do poets never produce and why, and why certain metrical patterns sound better than others. English, Greek, Japanese, Somali, and Russian are among the languages explored. Annotation :2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Author: Michelle Karnes
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226819760
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
A cross-cultural study of magical phenomena in the Middle Ages. Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather than constructions of belief accepted only by simple-minded people, Michelle Karnes shows that these spectacular wonders were near impossibilities that demanded scrutiny and investigation. This is the first book to analyze a diverse set of writings on such wonders, comparing texts from the Latin West—including those written in English, French, Italian, and Castilian Spanish —with those written in Arabic as it works toward a unifying theory of marvels across different disciplines and cultures. Karnes tells a story about the parallels between Arabic and Latin thought, reminding us that experiences of the strange and the unfamiliar travel across a range of genres, spanning geographical and conceptual space and offering an ideal vantage point from which to understand intercultural exchange. Karnes traverses this diverse archive, showing how imagination imbues marvels with their character and power, making them at once enigmatic, creative, and resonant. Skirting the distinction between the real and unreal, these marvels challenge readers to discover the highest capabilities of both nature and the human intellect. Karnes offers a rare comparative perspective and a new methodology to study a topic long recognized as central to medieval culture.

Author: Marco Sgarbi
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3319141694
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 3618

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Book Description
Gives accurate and reliable summaries of the current state of research. It includes entries on philosophers, problems, terms, historical periods, subjects and the cultural context of Renaissance Philosophy. Furthermore, it covers Latin, Arabic, Jewish, Byzantine and vernacular philosophy, and includes entries on the cross-fertilization of these philosophical traditions. A unique feature of this encyclopedia is that it does not aim to define what Renaissance philosophy is, rather simply to cover the philosophy of the period between 1300 and 1650.

Author: H Darrel Rutkin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030107795
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 591

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Book Description
This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate knowledge and practice. The discussion reconstructs the changing roles of astrology in Western science, theology, and culture from 1250 to 1500. The author considers both the how and the why. He analyzes and integrates a broad range of sources. This analysis shows that the history of astrology—in particular, the story of the protracted criticism and ultimate removal of astrology from the realm of legitimate knowledge and practice—is crucial for fully understanding the transition from premodern Aristotelian-Ptolemaic natural philosophy to modern Newtonian science. This removal, the author argues, was neither obvious nor unproblematic. Astrology was not some sort of magical nebulous hodge-podge of beliefs. Rather, astrology emerged in the 13th century as a richly mathematical system that served to integrate astronomy and natural philosophy, precisely the aim of the “New Science” of the 17th century. As such, it becomes a fundamentally important historical question to determine why this promising astrological synthesis was rejected in favor of a rather different mathematical natural philosophy—and one with a very different causal structure than Aristotle's.