THE MAGICULUM
Todd Landman, editor
APRIL 2014 | ISBN: 978-8792633279
Paperback | 6×9 | B&W | 210 p
LIST PRICE: $15
This collection of essays has been written by magicians who really care about magic, but as it reveals no secrets it is appropriate for anyone, particularly for those interested in what magic means in the contemporary world. The collection is built on a network of lifelong magicians who discovered magic at a young age and who allowed it to mature alongside their intellectual and practical formation.
They are academics (epistemologists, political scientists, anthropologists, cultural theorists, professors of literature, teachers, martial artists, actors, readers, pastors, and thinkers).
They have been drawn together to contemplate different dimensions of magic and how they relate to it through their own life experiences as magicians.
Drawn from Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Norway, United States, and the United Kingdom, they were asked a broad set of questions and allowed to interpret them as they so wished:
- What in your upbringing and formation led you to magic?
- What does magic mean for you?
- In what ways does magic affect your day to day living?
- In what ways do you elicit magic in your work, performance and social relationships?
- Why does magic matter to you?
Though commissioned independently, their stories and reflections reveal remarkable similarities in the themes that they address. Magic as power. Magic as escape. Magic as protection. Magic as play. Magic as medium. Magic as unknowable. Magic as symbol. Magic as gendered. Magic as language. Magic as incomplete. Magic as a quest.
The essays will touch anyone who has imagined a magical world and who has a sense of wonder, either as a child or an adult. Broad in its approach, specific in its intent, the Magiculum offers much to contemplate.
Contents
- Prologue – Todd Landman
- A Palindromic Wand – Andy Fisher
- Birds and Fish – Stuart Nolan
- Magic: A Smoke Alarm for the Soul – Andy Fisher
- Magus: Dangerous Kids and the Seduction of Power – Daniele Nigris
- Feminine Magic – Lynne Kelly
- The Re-Enchantment of Self – Todd Landman
- Monsters, Lies and Family Ties – Ashton Carter
- Out of Tricks – Nik Taylor
- Roots of the Plumbers – Christopher Faria
- The Arts of the Night: Circumventing the Sign – Camelia Elias
- Antiquarian Magic – Brian Corrigan
- Word Magic – Enrique Enriquez
- The Restoration of Magic ~ Christopher Gould
- Confessions of a Catholic Witch ~ Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold
- Epilogue: Rue Ballet (du) EE– Todd Landman
- Notes on the Contributors
You are welcome to also visit professor Landman’s mirror page here.
