Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic - Brossura

During, Simon

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0674013719 ISBN 13: 9780674013711

Casa editrice: Harvard University Press, 2004

Riassunto

Magic, Simon During suggests, has helped shape modern culture. Devoted to this deceptively simple proposition, During's superlative work, written over the course of a decade, gets at the aesthetic questions at the very heart of the study of culture. How can the most ordinary arts-and by "magic" During means not the supernatural, but the special effects and conjurings of magic shows-affect people? Modern Enchantments takes us deeply into the history and workings of modern secular magic, from the legerdemain of Isaac Fawkes in 1720, to the return of real magic in nineteenth-century spiritualism, to the role of magic in the emergence of the cinema. Through the course of this history, During shows how magic performances have drawn together heterogeneous audiences, contributed to the molding of cultural hierarchies, and extended cultural technologies and media at key moments, sometimes introducing spectators into rationality and helping to disseminate skepticism and publicize scientific innovation. In a more revealing argument still, Modern Enchantments shows that magic entertainments have increased the sway of fictions in our culture and helped define modern society's image of itself. (20020511)

Su questo libro

L'autore

Simon During is Australian Research Professor at the Centre for the History of European Discourses at The University of Queensland.

Product Description

Modern Enchantments takes us deeply into the history and workings of modern secular magic, from the legerdemain of Isaac Fawkes in 1720, to the return of real magic in nineteenth-century spiritualism, to the role of magic in the emergence of the cinema. Through the course of this history, During shows how magic performances have drawn together heterogeneous audiences, contributed to the molding of cultural hierarchies, and extended cultural technologies and media at key moments, sometimes introducing spectators to rationality and helping to disseminate skepticism and publicize scientific innovation. In a more revealing argument still, Modern Enchantments shows that magic entertainments have increased the sway of fictions in our culture and helped define modern society's image of itself.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Harvard University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0674013719
• ISBN 13: 9780674013711
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 348
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Amazon EU Sarl; 0; www.amazon.com; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; 0; L-1855; Lussemburgo