{"id":227,"date":"2004-07-25T03:40:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-25T03:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2004-07-25T03:40:00","modified_gmt":"2004-07-25T03:40:00","slug":"227","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating Pagan Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at my campus office, I discovered a review copy of Witching Culture<\/em><\/a> by folklorist and anthropologist Sabina Magliocco<\/a>. The publisher’s cover blurb calls it “the first ethnography of this religious movement to focus specifically on the role of anthropology and folklore in its formation.”<\/p>\n

I think the meatiest section will be the last, Part III, “Beyond Experience: Religion and Identity” with its two chapters, “The Romance of Subdominance: Creating Oppositional Culture” and “‘The Heart is the Only Nation:’ Neo-Paganism, Ethnic Identity, and the Construction of Authenticity.”<\/p>\n

I am just starting to read it, but I can already see that Magliocco takes on the problem of why, in the face of all historical evidence, so many Pagans cling to the myth of the Burning Times and of the antiquity of Wicca, as though it really was a direct survival of the Stone Age and not a twentieth-century creation. She seems to view these issues through the lens of “identity politics,” which probably is as valid an approach as any. I look forward to spending more time with the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creating Pagan Identity Back at my campus office, I discovered a review copy of Witching Culture by folklorist and anthropologist Sabina Magliocco. The publisher’s cover blurb calls it “the first ethnography of this religious movement to focus specifically on the role of anthropology and folklore in its formation.” I think the meatiest section will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-227","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=130","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":0},"title":"Witchcraft and folklore Folklorist Sabina\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft and folklore Folklorist Sabina Magliocco, an anthropologist at California State University-Northridge and a previous contributo to The Pomegranate, has a new book out, Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America. From the publisher's catalog: Taking the reader into the heart of one of the fastest-growing religious movements in North\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7338,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7338","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":1},"title":"How Do You Feel about Faeries?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE: The survey is now closed. Prof. Magliocco received more than 500 responses quickly, and they exceeded the number that the university's Institutional Review Board \"allowed.\" From Sabina Maglicco at California State University, Northridge, comes this request for help with a survey: My latest project involves research into the lore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"Prof. Magliocco","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/magliocco-sabina.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":2},"title":"Handbook of Contemporary Paganism in Print","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My contributor copy of the new Handbook of Contemporary Paganism from Brill arrived. (You can tell from the price that it is intended primarily for the institutional market.) Here is the table of contents:\"The Modern Magical Revival,\" Nevill Drury\"The Influence of Aleister Crowley on Gerald Gardner and the Early Witchcraft\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5590,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5590","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":3},"title":"Survey: Your Spiritual Relationship with Animals","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Sabina Magliocco, anthropologist and folklorist and author of Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America, among other books, has a new research project underway on people's spiritual relationships with animals. The purpose of this study is to understand how we imagine our relationship to animals, how we incorporate animals into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":310,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=310","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":4},"title":"Pagans in Natural History Natural\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagans in Natural History Natural History reviews two books by scholars of Paganism Sarah Pike and Sabina Magliocco.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12446,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12446","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":5},"title":"Z Budapest Is Still Creating","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Z Budapest, one the first public witches of the 1970s in the United States, is \"largely retired from ritual work\" but still creating, according to a profile pubished in the Los Angeles Times. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with all her views, but in the history of the craft, she is an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}