Magical and Literary Enchantment in the Ancient World

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Magical and Literary Enchantment in the Ancient World: The Poetic-Pragmatic Aspect of Ancient Magical Texts

Although magic in the ancient world is typically characterised as acting mechanically, our surviving evidence frequently betrays this common idea of magic as the instant and arhetorical product of a verbal or written utterance. In surviving texts, the language of entreaty and persuasion often accompanies injunctions, and imperatives and declaratives are frequently accompanied, extended, or even replaced by figurative uses of language such as metaphor, analogy, and metonymy, as well as creative allusion and quotation, extended descriptive passages, and various forms of narrative. This workshop aims to investigate this ‘literary’ or ‘poetic-pragmatic’ aspect of (late) antique magical texts, primarily in a Jewish context, but with a comparative eye to other cultural contexts.

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

12:00 – 12:10

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Prof. Hindy Najman (Oxford)

SESSION I

12:10 – 12:50

Prof. Daniel Schwemer (Würzburg)

Literature and Ritual Performance in Ancient Mesopotamian Magic: The Case of the Babylonian Apotropaic Ritual ‘House of Enclosure’ (Bīt mēseri)

12:50 – 13:30

Prof. Richard Gordon (Erfurt)

Rhetorical Devices in Two Graeco-Egyptian Erotic Procedures (PGM IV 1496-1595; Suppl. Mag. no.47)

BREAK

SESSION II

14:00 – 14:40

Prof. Siam Bhayro (Exeter)

The Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls: How the Magic Works

14:40 – 15:20

Dr. Dorota Molin (Cambridge and Oxford)

Bible Verses in the Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls: Invoking a Written Authority, Citing an Aural Source

BREAK

15:30 – 16:10

Dr. Ortal-Paz Saar (Utrecht)

Incantations and Nursery Rhymes: Text Stability in Jewish Magic

16:10 – 16:50

Prof. Sarah Iles Johnston (Ohio)

Narrating Reality in the Great Paris Magical Papyrus

BREAK

17:00 – 17:40

Dr. Daniel James Waller (Oxford)

‘I Descended to the Depths of the Earth’: Illocutionary Weight and First-Person Narrative Spells in the Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls

17:40 – 18:20

Prof. Gideon Bohak (Tel Aviv)

Response to the Papers and First Thoughts on their Wider Implications

18:20 – 18:30

Closing Remarks