Political power and magic

This paper considers how magic power – as a political resource, and as a metaphor for political power – is implicated in current and past thought about sovereignty and domination. Shakespeare’s treatments of politics, magic, sovereignty and domination are an illuminating source, relating as they do...

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Main Author: Frazer, E
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Routledge 2018
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author Frazer, E
author_facet Frazer, E
author_sort Frazer, E
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description This paper considers how magic power – as a political resource, and as a metaphor for political power – is implicated in current and past thought about sovereignty and domination. Shakespeare’s treatments of politics, magic, sovereignty and domination are an illuminating source, relating as they do to the Machiavellian tradition, and to later treatments of the themes by Hobbes and Weber. The question is raised how articulated scepticism about political power relates to scepticism about alleged magic; and how the conduct of Shakespeare’s magicians casts light on their conduct qua political actors.
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spelling oxford-uuid:c288d548-08e8-4727-8c0c-a1f8ca2f48032022-03-27T06:09:52ZPolitical power and magicJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c288d548-08e8-4727-8c0c-a1f8ca2f4803EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordRoutledge2018Frazer, EThis paper considers how magic power – as a political resource, and as a metaphor for political power – is implicated in current and past thought about sovereignty and domination. Shakespeare’s treatments of politics, magic, sovereignty and domination are an illuminating source, relating as they do to the Machiavellian tradition, and to later treatments of the themes by Hobbes and Weber. The question is raised how articulated scepticism about political power relates to scepticism about alleged magic; and how the conduct of Shakespeare’s magicians casts light on their conduct qua political actors.
spellingShingle Frazer, E
Political power and magic
title Political power and magic
title_full Political power and magic
title_fullStr Political power and magic
title_full_unstemmed Political power and magic
title_short Political power and magic
title_sort political power and magic
work_keys_str_mv AT frazere politicalpowerandmagic