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Online Workshop: Magical and Literary Enchantment in the Ancient World

Join us for an online workshop on: Magical and Literary Enchantment in the Ancient World – the poetic-pragmatic aspect of ancient magical texts.

Programme

12:00 – 12:10
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Professor Hindy Najman (Oxford)

Session I

12:10 – 12:50 Professor 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
Professor 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
Professor Siam Bhayro (Exeter)
The Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls: How the Magic Works

14:40 – 15:20
Dr Dorota Molin (Cambridge and Oxford)
Bible Performance in the Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls: Negotiating ‘Orthodoxy’ and Magic

Break

15:30 – 16:10
Dr Ortal-Paz Saar (Utrecht)
Incantations and Nursery Rhymes: Text Stability in Jewish Magic

16:10 – 16:50
Professor 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
Professor Gideon Bohak (Tel Aviv)
Response to the Papers and First Thoughts on their Wider Implications

18:20 – 18:30
Closing Remarks