Witchcraft and magical beliefs have captivated historians and artists for millennia, and stimulated an extraordinary amount of research among scholars in a wide range of disciplines. This new collection, from the editor of the highly acclaimed 1992 set, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology , extends the earlier volumes by bringing together the most important articles of the past twenty years and covering the profound changes in scholarly perspective over the past two decades. Featuring thematically organized papers from a broad spectrum of publications, the volumes in this set encompass the key issues and approaches to witchcraft research in fields such as gender studies, anthropology, sociology, literature, history, psychology, and law. This new collection provides students and researchers with an invaluable resource, comprising the most important and influential discussions on this topic. A useful introductory essay written by the editor precedes each volume.
Introduction vii On Studying Witchcraft as Womens History: A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions 1(14) Anne Llewellyn Barstow The Witch ``She /The Historian ``He: Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch-Hunts 15(25) Elspeth Whitney Women as Victims? Witches, Judges, and the Community 40(14) Robin Briggs The ``Gendering of Witchcraft in French Demonology: Misogyny or Polarity? 54(12) Stuart Clark Through the Prism of Witchcraft: Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy 66(22) Valerie A. Kivelson The Devil in the Shape of a Man: Witchcraft, Conflict, and Belief in Jacobean England 88(31) Malcolm Gaskill Women: Witnesses and Witches 119(34) Clive Holmes Witchcraft and Women in Seventeenth-Century England: Some Northern Evidence 153(22) J. A. Sharpe Marriage or a Career? Witchcraft as an Alternative in Seventeenth-Century Venice 175(21) Sally Scully Words, Witches, and Women Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly Speech, and Gender Boundaries in Puritan New England 196(22) Jane Kamensky Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Womens Powers: Views from the Mexican Inquisition 218(29) Ruth Behar Witches and Witchcraft: A Study about Representations of Female Power on Santa Catarina Island 247(10) Sonia Weidner Maluf Witches, Wives, and Mothers: Witchcraft Persecutions and Womens Confessions in Seventeenth-Century England 257(21) Louise Jackson Womens stories of witchcraft in Early Modern England: The House, the Body, the Child 278(25) Diane Purkiss Witchcraft and Fantasy in Early Modern Germany 303(25) Lyndal Roper The Spirit of Fornication: Virtue of the Soul and Virtue of the Body in Friuli, 1600--1800 328(31) Luisa Accati Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe 359(5) Eric B. Ross Stealing Manhood: Capitalism and Magic in Early Modern Germany 364(19) Lyndal Roper Fears of Flying: Representations of Witchcraft and Sexuality in Early Sixteenth-Century Germany 383(30) Charles Zika Witches as Devils Concubines: On the Origin of Fear of Witches and Protection against Witches 413(24) Lene Dresen-Coenders Witch or Saint: Absolutes in the French 18th Century Novel 437(12) Catherine Rubinger The Embodied Goddess: Feminist Witchcraft and Female Divinity 449(14) Wendy Griffin Acknowledgments 463
Brian P. Levack is John Green Regents Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. A former Guggenheim Fellow, his other writings on witchcraft include Articleson Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology (1992), TheWitch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1995), and Witchcraftand Magic in Europe: The Eighteenth and NineteenthCenturies (1999). Dr. Levack is also a specialist in the history of early modern England and Scotland, and has written several books on the subject.
