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Department of History
Department of History
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Adrian A. Selin
Department Head – Adrian A. Selin
Evgeniy Anisimov
Academic Supervisor – Evgeniy Anisimov
About the Department

The Department of History was created in 2012. The overarching goal of the department is systematic development of the field of global, comparative, and transnational history as a potent tool of overcoming the limitations of national history canon, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of social sciences and humanities, and brining new public relevance to historical knowledge. The department mission includes the development of new type of historical undergraduate and graduate education in Russia and pioneering new research fields in Russian historiography in dialogue with the global historical profession. 

Publications
Book
Shared Images: A History of American Art in the Soviet Union during the Cold War

Chunikhin K.

De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025.

Article
The Russian Civil War after 100 Years: Within and Beyond the Historiographical Front Lines

Alexander V. Reznik.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. P. 644-658.

Book chapter
Individualism and Psychology in the Auto/Biography of Lev Trotsky, 1900–20s

Alexander V. Reznik.

In bk.: Revolutionary Biographies in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Imperial – Inter/national – Decolonial. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2024. P. 17-34.

Working paper
The Image of the Past in Ciro Spontone’s ‘Historia Della Transilvania’

Khvalkov E., Levin F., Кузнецова А. Д.

Working Papers of Humanities. WP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2021

All publications
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Adrian A. Selin
Department Head – Adrian A. Selin
Evgeniy Anisimov
Academic Supervisor – Evgeniy Anisimov
Department of History

History of magic

2024/2025
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
3
ECTS credits
Delivered by:
Department of History
Type:
Mago-Lego
When:
1 module

Instructor

Starun, Maria

Starun, Maria

Course Syllabus

Full SyllabusAsk Question

Abstract

This course will examine the social history of magic in the broad context of world history. Attention will be focused on social aspects relevant to different regions in the history of magic and witchcraft. For their study, the main concepts in the course will be gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. With the rise of rationalism and secular tendencies, it is these aspects of identity that have become key to accusations of witchcraft/witchcraft. We will therefore consider how the witch trials changed gender relations in European society; how the perception of non-Europeans was conditioned by rationalizing thinking; how magic became a legal legal argument for discrimination against particular groups; how witches and witches themselves dealt with the new reality in different regions of the world; and in what contexts the social rehabilitation of witches took place in modern times. The course will focus on the history of these transformations, which are not really confined to the realm of magic, witchcraft, and the occult, but which have been totally penetrating and changing social relations, legal concepts, ways of seeing justice, and power structures. Much of the course is a seminar class, and virtually all of the literature for the class is in English. Both Russian and English language skills are required for the course.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • формирование у студентов представлений о потенциальных возможностях методологии социальной истории в области исследования магических практик и представлений различных обществ
  • ознакомление студентов с основными понятиями в области истории магии, а также понимание основных социальных процессов, способствующих её трансформациям в новое и новейшее время
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • be able to discuss the basic concepts and history of the development of magic
  • be able to see the continuity and interdependence between the magical and the scientific
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Witchcraft in history and anthropology
  • Magic in Non-western Europe
  • Colonization and the manufacturing of "alienness"
  • The magical origins of the scientific revolution
  • Occultism as a modern magic
  • Magic and Self
  • Magic and modern economy
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking essay
  • non-blocking in-class discussion
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2024/2025 1st module
    0.7 * essay + 0.3 * in-class discussion
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Desperate magic : the moral economy of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Russia, Kivelson, V., 2013

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Francis Bacon: from magic to science, Rossi, P., 2009
  • Magic, science, and religion in early modern Europe, Waddell, M. A., 2021

Authors

  • LYUBAVINA SVETLANA VYACHESLAVOVNA
  • Starun Maria Igorevna