Damon Zacharias Lycourinos

I am a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and have an academic background in the fields of Anthropology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Education from the University of Wales, Lampeter, the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge. I am currently completing my thesis on the relationship of ritual and the body in modern Western magic, employing both analysis of primary sources and data collected from ethnographic fieldwork. Central to my research is the consideration of the category of magic in both Western historiographical and anthropological discourse, the phenomenology of the body in modern Western magic as the focus of ritual practice, and the structure and essence of experience as constituting the ritual reality for contemporary practitioners.

 

Contributions by Damon Zacharias Lycourinos

podcast

A Critical Introduction to the History, Beliefs, and Practices of Wiccans

In this interview Ethan Doyle White, author of the book Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft, introduces his systematic overview of the contested history and multifaceted developments of Wicca. White presents his own methodological approaches and theoretical data utilising both emic and etic sources in a thematic framework.

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podcast

The Subtle Body

During the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Damon Lycourinos had the pleasure of interviewing Jay regarding her work on the subtle body and alternative notions of intersubjectivity, addressing both the theoretical and methodological...

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response

The Work of Carlo Ginzburg as the Researcher and the Reimagined Researched

what I will be addressing in this response, which I believe has become an area of concern for both ethnographers and subjects, are the effects that the ‘researcher’ might have in organising and constructing the identity of the ‘researched’ in emic self-representations. During the EASR/IAHR/NGG 2014 Conference on Religion and Pluralities of Knowledge at the University of Groningen, I had the privilege of attending Carlo Ginzburg’s presentation, followed by his interview with the Religious Studies Project.

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podcast

Global Categories; Local Contexts

Carlo Ginzburg is professor emeritus in History of European Cultures in Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. A distinguished historian with a remarkable career, Ginzburg is known for his microhistorical research approach. His most well-known book The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller follows clues ...

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response

The Twilight of Esoteric Wanders and Academic Ponders

"If one is to understand esotericism as a general term of identification reproduced through articulated fields of discourse, Western esotericism can be treated as a historical phenomenon without being nominalistic or idealistic, but instead as a field of discourses of interpretation interacting." One of the most influential scholars in the contemporary academic study of Western esotericism is beyond doubt the erudite and highly productive Wouter J. Hanegraaff, professor ...

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