MS-150-40: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100

MS-150-40: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100

 

Recent Submissions

  • Budin, Stephanie Lynn (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    This presentation is a look at the various fads that have driven and skewed research in the Humanities in the past century, with a particular focus on how these fads have affected the study of human sexuality. Each case ...
  • Brussman, Ive (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    In The Golden Bough Sir James Frazer gives attention to various forms of worshiping of trees and tree spirits − a phenomenon that has prevailed throughout history, in magic, religion, mythology and folklore to the present. ...
  • Morris, Christine (Prudence Priest Collection of the New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    This paper is a point of departure from the Cretan Bronze Age ideas about Minoan female divinity strongly shaped by Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of the palace of Knossos. Evans, in turn, was influenced by contemporaries ...
  • Chester (Biblical scholar), Ryan (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    The idea of religious studies and religion convenes at the intersection of anachronism, pragmatism, and the non sequitur. The religious concept itself, although sanctioned with formal authority, is nonetheless premised on ...
  • Corrente, Paola (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    In this presentation, Correntel discusses the myths of Inanna/Ishtar's, Baal's and Dionysus's death and resurrection in a comparative perspective, moving from textual evidence. He also addresses the major critical points ...
  • Nissinen, Martti (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    First Keynote Speaker. The goddess Ištar has multiple gendered agencies in Mesopotamian texts. She features as a lover, mother, daughter, as well as an independent sexual agent who is capable of transgressing gender ...
  • Testa, Alessandro (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-10)
    The talk will start with a brief overview of the historiography of Frazer's impactful, everlasting legacy in European academic, literary, and pop cultures. It will then focus on one, specific new paradigm, "Popular Frazerism", ...
  • Phillips, Julia (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-10)
    Part of the appeal for Frazer's work – both academic and populist – was that the Victorian age introduced ideas about evolution, and especially the concept of ‘New Imperialism' and authoritative rationalism, which placed ...
  • Hutton, Ronald (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-10)
    The author of the Golden Bough was as remarkable as his book, in his professional career, personal life, and political, social and religious attitudes; and these things all deeply informed his approach to scholarship. This ...
  • Cornish, Helen (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    This ethnographic paper traces how remnants of Frazer’s The Golden Bough are navigated amongst twenty-first century witches as they orient contemporary practices towards the past. Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, ...
  • Moorees, Saskia (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    Frazer’s typology of ‘sympathetic magic’ proved especially popular in the study of ancient magic after it appeared in The Golden Bough. Frazer’s Law of Similarity, in particular, was predicated on the idea that according ...
  • Tittl, Larissa (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    This paper will explore how Frazer’s dying god and sacrificial king are taken up and reimagined in The King must Die, by twentieth century novelist Mary Renault. A pathway from Frazer’s dying god and sacrificed king to ...
  • Köster, Isabel (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    This talk explores the usefulness and pitfalls of using Frazer’s theories to interpret inscriptions that refer to dedications made by (or on behalf of) Roman soldiers to nymphs. Starting with an overview in The Golden ...
  • O'Brien, Stephen (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    In 2021 David Graeber and David Wengrow released their book The Dawn of Everything: A new history of humanity to acclaim in the popular media and bestseller status in several countries. Anthropologists and Archaeologists ...
  • Smith, Caroline (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    Although now methodologically outdated, The Golden Bough is credited with making decisive the scapegoat’s meaning as the innocent surrogate victim who is blamed and punished for the deeds of others. This victim’s namesake, ...
  • Scurlock, JoAnne (Prudence Priest Collection of the New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    The Frazerian Fertility Cult is the mirror image of a culture that is at the same time sex-obsessed and deeply uncomfortable on the subject. From earliest times in ancient Mesopotamia, overpopulation was a serious concern ...
  • Linder, Nadia (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-11)
    Many tenets first formulated by Sir James Frazer in his magnum opus The Golden Bough still survive to this day in discussions of ancient Mesopotamian cult, myth, and religion. As a case study for the still pernicious ...
  • Rosa, Frederico Delgado (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-10)
    Wilhelm Mannhardt (1831-1880) is an excluded ancestor par excellence. Never translated, seldom read, his work is only mentioned in passing, as a source of data for The Golden Bough. Despite James Frazer acknowledging his ...
  • Parkin, Tim G. (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-10)
    Dr. Tim Parkin, The Tatoulis Chair In Classics, Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne opens the conference with a welcome and a brief overview of Frazer's importance. Additional Authors: ...
  • Zwissler, Laurel (New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library, 2023-02-12)
    This project investigates Frazer’s influence within both the academic study of religion and new religious movements, such as contemporary Paganism and New Age, with focus on his deployment of religion to code cultural ...

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