Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe

Know about the book -

Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe is written by Charles Zika and published by BRILL. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 9004475915 (ISBN 10) and 9789004475915 (ISBN 13).

This collection of sixteen essays deals with the role of magic, religion and witchcraft in European culture, 1450-1650, and the critical role of the visual in that culture. It covers the relationship of humanism and magic; the intersection of religious ritual, orthodoxy and power; the discursive links between the visual language of witchcraft and contemporary anxieties about sexuality and savagery. The introductory chapter urges us to exorcise our tendency to reduce historical experiences of the demonic to forms of unreason created in a distant past. Only then can we understand the role of the demonic in our historical definition of the self and the other. Richly illustrated with 112 images, the book will interest historians and art historians.