1930's Cairo: Jinn summoners and mystics
In 1930's Cairo there was a police campaign to shut down the shadow world of Jinn summoners and mystics. At the same time, another group emerged, the hypnotists and spiritualists inspired by the scientific progress of the 20th century. This talk puts these two phenomena alongside each other, looking at one of the most famous court cases of the 1930's, involving an Italian woman who had married one of the kings of the Jinn world, and at some of the most famous hypnotists of modern Cairo. Looking at these two things together, the talk will explore questions of gender, modernity, and East-West relations in a completely new way.
Bio
Raphael Cormack is Assistant Professor of Arabic at Durham University. He is a writer, translator, and editor. His first book, Midnight in Cairo, was about the female stars of Egypt’s early 20th century entertainment scene. Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age, about the transnational history of the occult in the 1920's and 1930's, is his second book.
Curated & Hosted by
Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She lives in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesvos.
Caption
Dr Salomon, Arabic hypnotist and his medium Emile.
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