Gerhild Scholz Williams
INVOKING THE POWERS THAT BE: TYPES OF AUTHORITY AND THE PRODUCTION
OF THE "THEATRUM DE VENEFICIS" (1586).
The Theatrum de Veneficis is a collection of 17 witchtracts expressing
different viewpoints on the issues. I will discuss various authorizing gestures
on the basis of this collection. If I have enough time, I might also talk
a bit about translation and authority in the context of the witch phenomenon,
but that would be in addition to the basic paper.
A few reading suggestions for those interested:
The texts associated with this issue are too numerous to mention. It might,
however, be helpful to check the most recent collection of articles by Jonathan
Barry et al., WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE. (1996); Stuart Clark's
THINKING WITH DEMONS (1997) is huge but a glance at what all there is might
be useful. My book DEFINING DOMINION (1995) might be
good for bibliography, and, as I said, there is a huge corpus out there.
Since the FAUSTBUCH was published the same year as the TV and in the same
printing environment, it might be helpful to (re)read it, especially theVORREDE
AN DEN LESER.