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Yes I agree, that’s why it is so annoying that many Pagans see “academic” as a dirty word, they just don’t know what kinds of work [academic] people are doing that are really interesting, useful to, and inclusive of practitioners. ~Caroline. From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Magliocco, Sabina Sent: Tuesday, 14 December 2010 2:25 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Trials of the Moon and people who hate Hutton Hi Caroline et al., I completely agree with you that academics can be totally annoying when they insist that their way of knowing is the only valid one. But that’s exactly what most academic writers about modern esoteric *don’t* do, especially with respect to magic as an alternate way of knowing. Many of us who write academically about these topics work alongside producers of knowledge in the communities we study, giving workshops, doing “reciprocal ethnography” and in various ways interweaving insider perspectives with more theoretical or analytical ones in our work. For folklorists and many anthropologists, it’s the core of what we do. So please understand if we begin to feel a bit tired when we’re accused of being exclusivist and denigrating insider knowledge. As for historical approaches to the movement, I can only conclude that for some, any inquiry into the historicity of tradition constitutes an attempt to de-legitimize it – which again is a misunderstanding of the whole endeavor. I’m with Jason: “Triumph” and its successors (WDAKA and the twin books on Druidry) *celebrate* the history of modern Paganisms. They should inspire others – both lay and academic writers – to further explore these histories, both in their British context and in other national/ global contexts. BB, Sabina From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Caroline Tully Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 5:36 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Trials of the Moon and people who hate Hutton Hi Sabina, I think that the refusal of many within academia to recognise that there can actually be other avenues for studying or knowing about a subject besides from within a university can be really annoying to those who are not within a university situation but who research subjects and do a pretty good job at it. For example, a lot of people at my university, having gone from school to uni and sometimes even stayed there and become big-wig professional scholars just do not realise – or they realise but don’t really think much about it – that there are other ways to find knowledge. I mean what about journalism? That involves research. (I heard one postgraduate student wonder how journalists can get away with not footnoting their articles “because that’s plagiarism, y’know.” Hello, it’s called the journalistic writing style). I am a mature age student at my current university and have worked as a non-academic writer for years before being enrolled in university, but the only thing valued there is actual university-recognised scholarship, if you have an academic transcript you’re considered to be an expert over someone who does not. And that is simply not always the case. So… I understand why people find academics annoying in that way, however, as Jason said, >>I read TotM as celebrating a rich history of Witchcraft.<< so I don’t quite see why people find Hutton so annoying. ~Caroline. From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Magliocco, Sabina Sent: Tuesday, 14 December 2010 7:14 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Trials of the Moon and people who hate Hutton I , too, have noticed not only the bald hostility that Hutton’s work seems to inspire in some, but the attacks against academia that sometimes come from practitioners. It strikes me that this may be an outgrowth of the inherent oppositionality of the movement (by which I mean to include not just Wicca and Paganism, but modern Esoterism in general). These groups tend to construct identity in contrast to the dominant paradigm, or mainstream; academia, being acknowledged as a producer of expert knowledge by the latter, becomes an easy target against which to define oneself. It’s essentially a struggle to determine legitimacy of knowledge and who has the authority to produce it. And yes, as in all examples of this kind, this kind of positioning essentializes categories and ignores the fact that many of us straddle them comfortably – including Hutton. It’s a matter of perspective which knowledge is authoritative in what context; the act of changing between perspectives at will is itself a magical act. BB, Sabina Sabina Magliocco Professor Department of Anthropology California State University - Northridge 18111 Nordhoff St. Northridge, CA 91330-8244 "If we want things to stay the way they are, everything will have to change." ~ Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard