A U.K. University Will Confer a New Title: A Master’s Degree in the Occult
- 7 months ago
#englishnews #ukuniversity
News Article :-
In the ancient city of Exeter, three women were hanged for practicing witchcraft in the late 17th century, the last of such executions in England. Now, merely a short walk from where the hangings occurred, the University of Exeter will offer a postgraduate degree in magic and occult science, which the school says is the first of its kind at a British university.
Prof. Emily Selove, the head of the new program and an associate professor in medieval Arabic literature, said the idea for the degree, which will be offered starting in September 2024, came out of the recent surge in interest in the history of witchcraft and a desire to create a space where research on magic could be studied across academic fields.
Coursework will include the study of Western dragons in lore, literature and art; archaeology theory; the depiction of women in the Middle Ages; the practice of deception and illusion; and the philosophy of psychedelics. Through the lenses of Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, lecturers will explore how magic has influenced society and science.
Christina Oakley Harrington, a retired academic of medieval history and the founder of Treadwell’s, a London bookstore specializing in literature on magic and spiritualism, said that many witches she knew were talking about the degree program, announced last week, and were thinking about enrolling.
“Not because they’re idiots and think it’s going to teach them how to wave a magic wand and do a spell,” Dr. Oakley Harrington said. “They’re people who have just a huge curiosity about the world and the way we perceive the seen and the unseen worlds.”
And in the United States, where fewer people are affiliated with religious institutions than in the past, interest in all things magic has surged. Six in 10 U.S. adults believe in one or more of the following: reincarnation, astrology, psychics and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects like mountains or trees, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center study.
There has also been renewed interest in witches, with feminism and pop culture embracing them as symbols of female independence. The trend is reflected in posts on TikTok, where videos under the #WitchTok tag have amassed nearly 50 billion views on topics such as cleansing homes of unwanted energy and identifying the qualities that make a person a witch.
Dr. Oakley Harrington said that she had seen an increase in sales in books on feminist witchcraft and on the history of magic, including to customers in their teens and early 20s. “They will pick up a book on witch hunts, which they wouldn’t have 10 years ago,” she said.
Pam Grossman, an author and the host of the popular “The Witch Wave” podcast who Vulture described as “the Terry Gross of witches,” said that people did not need to be “woo woo” to be interested in magic. “Whether or not one believes in magic, it is still worthy of academic rigor bec
News Article :-
In the ancient city of Exeter, three women were hanged for practicing witchcraft in the late 17th century, the last of such executions in England. Now, merely a short walk from where the hangings occurred, the University of Exeter will offer a postgraduate degree in magic and occult science, which the school says is the first of its kind at a British university.
Prof. Emily Selove, the head of the new program and an associate professor in medieval Arabic literature, said the idea for the degree, which will be offered starting in September 2024, came out of the recent surge in interest in the history of witchcraft and a desire to create a space where research on magic could be studied across academic fields.
Coursework will include the study of Western dragons in lore, literature and art; archaeology theory; the depiction of women in the Middle Ages; the practice of deception and illusion; and the philosophy of psychedelics. Through the lenses of Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, lecturers will explore how magic has influenced society and science.
Christina Oakley Harrington, a retired academic of medieval history and the founder of Treadwell’s, a London bookstore specializing in literature on magic and spiritualism, said that many witches she knew were talking about the degree program, announced last week, and were thinking about enrolling.
“Not because they’re idiots and think it’s going to teach them how to wave a magic wand and do a spell,” Dr. Oakley Harrington said. “They’re people who have just a huge curiosity about the world and the way we perceive the seen and the unseen worlds.”
And in the United States, where fewer people are affiliated with religious institutions than in the past, interest in all things magic has surged. Six in 10 U.S. adults believe in one or more of the following: reincarnation, astrology, psychics and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects like mountains or trees, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center study.
There has also been renewed interest in witches, with feminism and pop culture embracing them as symbols of female independence. The trend is reflected in posts on TikTok, where videos under the #WitchTok tag have amassed nearly 50 billion views on topics such as cleansing homes of unwanted energy and identifying the qualities that make a person a witch.
Dr. Oakley Harrington said that she had seen an increase in sales in books on feminist witchcraft and on the history of magic, including to customers in their teens and early 20s. “They will pick up a book on witch hunts, which they wouldn’t have 10 years ago,” she said.
Pam Grossman, an author and the host of the popular “The Witch Wave” podcast who Vulture described as “the Terry Gross of witches,” said that people did not need to be “woo woo” to be interested in magic. “Whether or not one believes in magic, it is still worthy of academic rigor bec