Magic

Katharina Rein holds a PhD in the History and Theory of Culture from Humboldt University of Berlin. Her PhD thesis, on the media and cultural history of stage magic in the late nineteenth century, won the Anniversary Prize for Young Researchers at the Buechner Publishing House and was published in 2020. Currently a lecturer in the Arts and Media Department of the University of Potsdam, she previously worked at the International Research Institute for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy (IKKM) and in the Department of Media Studies at Bauhaus University Weimar. She was also a member of the international, interdisciplinary research project Les Arts Trompeurs. Machines, Magie, Médias (Paris, 2015–18). She is the author of three monographs and of numerous academic essays that have appeared in four languages.

Contents: Magic Beliefs in History and Today – Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie: Demon Amulets and Christian Crosses – Magic in Byzantium – Thibaut Rioult: Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) – Renaissance Magic – Leo Ruickbie: Lucky Charms in the First World War – Industrialized Magic – Murray Leeder: Unseen Forces (1920) – Spiritualism in American Cinema – Magic across Cultures – Enrique Ajuria Ibarra: Veneno para las hadas (Poison for Fairies, 1984) – Magic in Mexican Cinema – Katarzyna Ancuta: Representations of Magic in Thai Cinema – Khmer Magic – Álvaro Martín Sanz: The Beauty and the Beast in The Shape of Water (2017) – Magical Realism – Josephine Diecke and Noemi Daugaard: The Colour Purple as a Signifier of Shamanism in Black Panther (2018) – Magic in Afrofuturism – Stage Magic in Its Golden Age – Beatrice Ashton-Lelliott: The Magician Autobiography – Magic Lives – Christopher Pittard: The Bullet Catch – Magic at War – Katharina Rein: Women in Stage Magic around 1900 – Female Conjuring – Frédéric Tabet and Pierre Taillefer: «The Suspension Ethéréenne» under the Photographer’s Lens – Magic Tricks Photographed – Magic Crossing Media Boundaries – Frank Kessler: The Féerie – Magic between Stage and Screen – Matthew Solomon: Georges Méliès’ Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin (1896) – The Materiality of Film Magic – Jamy Ian Swiss: Conjuring on the Small Screen – Broadcasting Magic – Roswitha Schuller: «My Friend the Witch Doctor» (1958) – Magic as a Pop-Cultural Trope – Michael Wedel: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. I (2010) – Magic and the Blockbuster – Sarah Faber: The Dragon Age Series (2009–2014) – Videogame Magic – Magic and the Body – Hannah Segrave: Salvator Rosa’s La Strega (1647–1650) – The Witch’s Body – Anna Grebe: Disability in Magic Performances – Magic and Disability – Jasmin Kathöfer and Jens Schröter: Disney Films – Magic and Labour – Stephanie Weber: Ray Bradbury’s «The Illustrated Man» (1950) – Magical Tattoos – Dunja Haufe: Charles Foster’s Being a Beast (2016) – Shamanism and Shapeshifting – Magic and Resistance – Marie Barras: J. W. Waterhouse’s The Magic Circle (1886) – The Sorceress and Victorian Gender Roles – Jessica Gossling: Arthur Machen’s The Hill of Dreams (1907) – Magic and Decadence – Hayes Hampton: Coil’s LP Scatology (1984) as a Queer Grimoire – Magic against Homophobia – Luce deLire: Queer Feminist Witchcraft and Embodied Reason – Magic and Queer Feminism – Daniela Lazoroska: #MagicResistance: Witchcraft on Social Media as Political Activism – Magic against Trump.