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This book presents a selective, introductory reading of key texts in the history of magic from antiquity forward, in order to construct a suggestive conceptual framework for disrupting our conventional notions about rhetoric and literacy.
Offering an overarching, pointed synthesis of the interpenetration of magic, rhetoric, and literacy, William A. Covino draws from theorists ranging from Plato and Cornelius Agrippa to Paulo Freire and Mary Daly, and analyzes the different magics that operate in Renaissance occult philosophy and Romantic literature, as well as in popular indicators of mass literacy such as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and The National Enquirer.
Magic, Rhetoric, and Literacy distinguishes two kinds of magic-rhetoric that continue to affect our psychological and cultural life today. Generative magic-rhetoric creates novel possibilities for action, within a broad sympathetic universe of signs and symbols. Arresting magic-rhetoric attempts to induce automatistic behavior, by inculcating rules and maxims that function like magic ritual formulas: JUST SAY NO. In this connection, the literate individual is one who can interrogate arresting language, and generate "counter-spells."
"William Covino has written a powerful and deeply engaging book. I am quite taken by his ability to make a subject like magic—a topic susceptible to either an unscholarly 'light' treatment or to an unfortunate academic dismissal—accessible to a broad audience and viable to scholars. I also especially admire the range of his concerns and the thoroughness with which he grounds his discussion in theory and history." — George Kalamaras, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Articulate and Inarticulate Power
1. Magic, Rhetoric, and Literacy
Magic
Rhetoric
Literacy
2. The Interanimation of Phantasms
The History of Phantasy
Renaissance Magic Rhetoric in the Light of Faith
Agrippa's Occult Philosophy
3. Parcels and Palimpsests
From Magic to Science
Natural Language Nationalized
Magic and Romanticism
De Quincey's Palimpsest
4. Magic Consciousness
Burke's Magic
Adorno Against Occultism
Marcuse's Universe of Discourse
Freire's Magic Consciousness
5. Grimoires and Witches
Arresting the New Age
The National Enquirer
Magic Nuggets and Tabloid Epistemology
Oprah and the Witches
Notes
References
Index