HIST 498: Sorcery and Society

Sorcery & Society HIST 498, Spring 2023 University of South Carolina Professor Matthew Melvin-Koushki Office: Gambrell 211 Office hours: T/Th 1:30–2:30 p.m. Email: mmelvink@sc.edu Phone: (803) 777-2905 Meeting time: T 2:50-5:20 p.m. Location: Gambrell 217 Course description Bodies and ideas, words and images, define our experience of history. As the stock-in-trade of scientists and poets, philosophers and artists, kings and peasants, messiahs and slaves, anarchists and imperialists, astronauts and psychonauts, they are our raw material as historians. But in human societies historically, the perpetual recombination of bodies and ideas was often defined as magic. This rule is no less true today: from war propaganda, capitalist advertising and popular entertainment to industrial pharmacology, genetic engineering and nuclear power, sometimes by the testament of their own practitioners, technologies for shaping and controlling society continue to be talismanic. The ubiquity and power of “magic” as the most contested of categories in Western societies made it the engine of medieval Christian demonology and then modern colonialist genocide. Both were and are obsessed with the superstitious sorcery of the natives, fit only to be erased through physical, psychological and historiographical violence. Yet witchhunts breed witches. As a direct product of European witchhunting and Indigenous and African witchery, American society too is weirdly sorcerous. This senior seminar takes “sorcery” as a strategic theme for investigating the weird and the wondrous in human societies generally. It forces us to ask: What do we include or exclude in our histories of the past and the present? What does it mean to be an actor in time and space? Can non-male, non-human and non-biological entities be actors? Is everything mindless bodies, or does mind matter? How do beliefs shape societies and their technologies? HIST 498 | 1 These are vast questions with many possible—and impossible—answers. We will therefore limit our focus to American sorcery, weirdly kaleidescopic in its ever-mutating varieties, from Civil War hauntings to Cold War psy-ops, Freemasonry to free-love utopias, ghostbusting to rocketology, high weirdness to mystic physics, New Thought to the End of History. As historians, we will read and write American society as a surprisingly magical Matrix. Learning outcomes Upon successful completion of History 498, the capstone course for the History major, students will be able to: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) utilize the tools, skills and strategies of the historian; analyze the problems of bias, access and narrative in accessing and retelling the past; identify, appraise and synthesize primary and secondary source materials; compose organized, lucid and persuasive arguments about a historical topic; recount how the field of history has changed and developed over time; specify the major fields of historiography and their differences in perspective and content; 7) evaluate and effectively critique the work of other historians. Course requirements and grading The course consists of one two-and-a-half-hour meeting per week. Each meeting will typically feature a Socratic-style combination of lecture and discussion in varying proportions, so it is vital that you read the assigned materials during the week they are assigned and come to class prepared with questions and observations on the readings. Attendance. Students are expected to attend class meetings regularly and punctually. Please do not come in late or leave early—it is disruptive and disrespectful. While attendance will not be taken, regular absences or tardiness are guaranteed to result in a low grade for the course, in which case you will need to repeat it to graduate in the major. Participation. This course pivots on vigorous discussion of matters theoretical and practical alike, so preparation is crucial. Students are expected to prepare the required readings for an intelligent discussion of the themes covered that week. This will be the basis of your participation grade (20% of total). Readings. Assigned readings for each week are indicated in the course schedule below. They are all from the three required books, which we will be reading in their entirety over the course of the semester; you will be writing book reviews on the first two. All are available for purchase HIST 498 | 2 from the university bookstore or online retailer. Readings should be completed by the beginning of their assigned week for the purposes of in-class discussion. Book reviews. Twice in the semester you will write a book review of a work of historiography. It should consist of two typed pages, single-spaced, with one-inch margins and a clean 12-point font, that analyzes the assigned work as an interpretive framework for history. You should attempt to answer the following questions:        What is the author’s main thesis and historical scope? What are her sources? Does the interpretive framework she constructs do justice to the evidence cited? Does she ignore evidence inconvenient for her argument? Do you find the narrative persuasive? What fixes would you suggest, if any? Who will find the book useful? Several book reviews of the relevant works will be provided as model, but your analysis must be your own and show evidence of close reading to receive full credit. Book reviews must also be written in standard academic style; poor spelling, grammar and formatting will be penalized. They are to be submitted online via Blackboard in doc or pdf format by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday of their scheduled week. NB: It is your responsibility to ensure that your book review has been safely received; if you experience technical difficulties in uploading the document or still have not received a grade within two weeks of submission, be sure to email me ASAP. Research paper. The second, practical half of the course will be focused on the development of your research project; each stage in its development (paper proposal, paper draft, final paper) will be graded separately. The research paper is your chance to do the work of the historian: choose a relevant, manageable topic of interest to you, with the proviso that sufficient accessible primary and secondary sources must exist. (The various Special Collections at USC are excellent places to start digging: http://library.sc.edu/p/collections.) Note that papers must depend heavily on primary sources to achieve a passing grade. The three project stages are as follows: 1. Paper proposal. Paper proposals should consist of a brief summary paragraph and tentative evaluation of the primary and secondary sources you will be utilizing. You may discuss potential topics and sources with me during office hours or by email; all paper topics must be approved by me beforehand. Paper topics must be finalized by 16 March. Paper proposals are due in doc or pdf format to me via Blackboard on 22 March by 11:59 p.m. 2. Paper draft. Paper drafts need not be full length (ca. 4,000 words), but they must be complete enough and polished enough to serve as the basis for my feedback. They are due in doc or pdf format to me via Blackboard on 10 April by 11:59 p.m. To ensure that everyone is HIST 498 | 3 on track, Weeks 11 and 12 of the semester (28 March and 4 April) will be devoted to individual meetings to discuss your research progress and address any issues you may have encountered; I will circulate an online poll for sign-up. More generally, I encourage you to get in touch with me if you have any questions throughout the process. 3. Final paper. Your finalized research paper, incorporating my feedback, is due via Blackboard in doc or pdf format on 2 May by 11:59 p.m. Late papers will not be accepted, as final grades are due to the registrar within 72 hours. Paper length should be around 4,000 words, single-spaced, with one-inch margins and a clean 12-point font (i.e., about ten typed pages, excluding bibliography), and must adhere to the stylistic norms of the discipline as laid out in Turabian’s Manual for Writers (either Chicago or MLA). Research presentation. The last two class meetings (11 and 18 April) will be devoted to in-class presentations of your research projects. Each student will have ten minutes to present their main arguments and sources, summarize their findings and field questions from the floor. You are welcome to prepare notes and/or a Powerpoint presentation for use while speaking, but may not read from a script; effective teaching requires direct engagement with your audience. Course website The course website is accessible via USC’s Blackboard system (http://blackboard.sc.edu), and contains general course information and announcements, reading assignments and lecture handouts. NB: All readings not on the required books list below are available as pdfs on the class website or via live hyperlinks in the schedule of classes below. Deadlines 25 January 15 February 16 March 22 March 10 April 11, 18 April 2 May Book review 1 Book review 2 Paper topic Paper proposal Paper draft Research presentations Final paper Grading The grade percentage breakdown is as follows: HIST 498 | 4 Book review 1 Book review 2 Research paper proposal Research paper draft Research paper Research presentation Participation 10% 10% 10% 10% 30% 10% 20% Grading is on a 100-point scale as follows: A = 90-100, B+ = 87-89, B = 80-86, C+ = 77-79, C = 70-76, D+ = 67-69, D = 60-66, F = 59 or less Device policy Cell phones are to be turned off and stowed away while in class. You are welcome to use your laptop or tablet for notetaking or reference purposes, but ostentatious websurfing or messaging that distracts those around you will lose you that privilege. Remember that you are at university to professionalize yourself. Opting for entertainment over engagement during class is an expensive waste of your own and others’ time and highly disrespectful and unprofessional; it will be penalized as such. Please do not attend if you do not wish to pay attention. Special needs Students must register with the Office of Student Disability Services (http://www.sa.sc.edu/sds) for disability verification and determination of eligibility for reasonable academic accommodations. Requests for academic accommodations for this course must be made at the beginning of the semester, or as soon as possible for newly approved students, and again at least two weeks in advance of any needed accommodations in order to make the necessary arrangements. Please make an appointment to meet with me in order to maintain confidentiality in addressing your needs. No accommodations will be given without authorization from the OSDS, or without advance notice. Academic integrity Students must follow the Carolinian Creed (http://www.sa.sc.edu/creed) and adhere at all times to the standards of academic integrity and honesty set forth in the University of South Carolina Honor Code (http://www.sc.edu/policies/staf625.pdf). Violations of the Honor Code (including but not limited to plagiarism, collaboration with another student or dishonesty) will 1) result in a failing grade for the entire course, and 2) be reported to the university’s Office of Academic InHIST 498 | 5 tegrity, which may impose an additional penalty. All material or ideas taken from another person’s work must be cited properly, and directly borrowed material must be identified with quotation marks and proper citation. Required books (available at the USC Bookstore or from online retailers)  Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008 (ISBN: 978-0300136159).  Erik Davis, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, London: Strange Attractor Press; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2019 (ISBN: 9781907222870).  Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022 (ISBN: 978-0226820248). SCHEDULE OF CLASSES Week 1 (Jan. 10): Entering the Matrix of American history  Read Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit Week 2 (Jan. 17): West Africa meets Native America meets England  Read Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit Week 3 (Jan. 24): From John Dee to Joseph Smith  Finish Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit  BOOK REVIEW 1 (Wednesday, Jan. 25): Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit Week 4 (Jan. 31): The art of popular sorcery  Read Davis, High Weirdness HIST 498 | 6 Week 5 (Feb. 7): Weird science  Read Davis, High Weirdness Week 6 (Feb. 14): High weirdness—with rockets  Finish Davis, High Weirdness  BOOK REVIEW 2 (Wednesday, Feb. 15): Davis, High Weirdness Week 7 (Feb. 21): War magic  Read Kripal, The Superhumanities Week 8 (Feb. 28): From New Thought to Christian Science  Read Kripal, The Superhumanities SPRING BREAK (Mar. 7) Week 9 (Mar. 14): Ghostbusting the haunted South  Read Kripal, The Superhumanities  RESEARCH PAPER TOPIC (Thursday, Mar. 16) Week 10 (Mar. 21): The End of History?  Finish Kripal, The Superhumanities  RESEARCH PAPER PROPOSAL (Wednesday, Mar. 22, 11:59 p.m.) HIST 498 | 7 Week 11 (Mar. 28): Writing history I  No class—individual meetings Week 12 (Apr. 4): Writing history II  No class—individual meetings  RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT (Monday, Apr. 10, 11:59 p.m. ) Week 13 (Apr. 11): Teaching history I  In-class research project presentations Week 14 (Apr. 18): Teaching history II  In-class research project presentations  FINAL RESEARCH PAPER (Tuesday, May 2, 11:59 p.m.) HIST 498 | 8