On Thursday, March 22, Dr. David Frankfurter joined us for our McLester Colloquium to speak on “Ancient Magic in a New Key: Refining an Exotic Discipline in the History of Religions.” Dr. Frankfurter is William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University.

In his talk, Dr. Frankfurter reconsidered the ways that “magic” has been embraced and treated in the study of Early Christianity. In his lecture, he subsequently advocated both a more rigorous approach to indigenous evaluations of ambiguous ritual and a more confident “etic” or descriptive use of the category magic. The fascinating lecture generated many questions and responses from the faculty and graduate students present and was followed by casual conversation over refreshments.

 

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News, News & Events on March 26, 2018. Bookmark the permalink.