Magic - A Theory from the South: A Theory from the South

The work of Ernesto de Martino is relatively unknown outside of Italian intellectual circles, but with a growing interest in his ethnographic and theoretical work, he is now widely considered to be one of the great anthropologists and historians of religion of the early twentieth century. Magic: A theory from the south (first published in Italian asSud e Magia) is de Martino’s stunning ethnography of ceremonial magic in southern Italy (Luciana/Basilicata), an intimate “other” to Western European civilization. Rigorous and detailed analyses of evil eye, possession, witchcraft, religious belief, “binding,” exorcism, and various magical practices lead de Martino to question the historical, ideological, ritual, psychological, and pragmatic grounds of the arts of enchantment. The question here is not whether magic is irrational or rational, but why it came to be perceived as a problem of knowledge in the first place. De Martino’s response is contextualized within his wider, pathbreaking theorization of ritual, as well as his politically sensitive reading of the south’s subaltern culture in its historical encounter with Western science. In addition to the ethnography, De Martino’s historical anthropology traces the development of “jettatura” in Enlightenment Naples as a paradigm of the complex dynamics between hegemonic and subaltern cultures. Far ahead of its time, this first English edition (annotated and translated by Dorothy Louise Zinn) stands to be as relevant as ever as anthropologists (among others) continue to theorize modernity’s continued tryst with magical thinking.1st Edition Publication Data: (1959] 2001. Sud e magia. Milano: Feltrinelli Editore. ISBN: 9788807816758.
Though his work was little known outside Italian intellectual circles for most of the twentieth century, anthropologist and historian of religions Ernesto de Martino is now recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the field. This book is testament to de Martino’s innovation and engagement with Hegelian historicism and phenomenology—a work of ethnographic theory way ahead of its time.This new translation of Sud e Magia, his 1959 study of ceremonial magic and witchcraft in southern Italy, shows how De Martino is not interested in the question of whether magic is rational or irrational but rather in why it came to be perceived as a problem of knowledge in the first place. Setting his exploration within his wider, pathbreaking theorization of ritual, as well as in the context of his politically sensitive analysis of the global south’s historical encounters with Western science, he presents the development of magic and ritual in Enlightenment Naples as a paradigmatic example of the complex dynamics between dominant and subaltern cultures. Far ahead of its time,Magic is still relevant as anthropologists continue to wrestle with modernity’s relationship with magical thinking.