Magic: It’s academic

Prominent University of Melboune based NZ-born theorist Simon During’s Modern Enchantments reviewed in Guardian. During’s “thorough and compelling” study challenges commonly held beliefs about the role of performed magic throughout history: “we milk the spectacle, he claims, not the other way round.” His view that “academic neglect of the magic assemblage has blinded us to the immunities that audiences can (and do) develop” is an interesting spin on the modern tendency to blame mass media spectacle for societal ills. Harvard University Press: “During’s superlative work […] gets at the aesthetic questions at the very heart of the study of culture.”