Knowledge is Power: Ars Magica as ‘Knowledge Economy’

The Wolfenbüttel workshop will focus on the historical and theoretical aspects of magic within the contexts of natural science and natural philosophy, on the one hand, and of literary studies and its relationship to the miraculous, on the other. Aspects of power are relevant to the constitution of concepts of sovereignty and society. Like theology, astrological magic discourses also claim healing potential when confronted with illness and death. After an excursion into Jewish Kabbalistic esoteric teachings, the temporal focus will shift to early modern demonological contexts of the miraculous and belief in spirits – which are as much part of the discourse of knowledge and power, as the discourses of religion and emotion.