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The Spider Dance

Tradition, Time and Healing in Southern Italy

Giovanna Parmigiani [+–]
Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University
Giovanna Parmigiani holds a Ph.D. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Toronto, and is Senior Fellow at Harvard Divinity School (Harvard University).

Based on an ethnographic research among contemporary Pagan communities in Southern Italy (Salento, Apulia), The Spider Dance challenges ideas of historicity, healing, place-making and the experience of time among persons engaged in reviving, continuing, or re-creating traditional Pagan practices. The Spider Dance looks at a specific Pagan group, the sisters of the cerchio (circle), and their ritual practice and interpretation of the traditional dance and music called pizzica. Pizzica, both in the history of Salento and in the scholarly tradition that studied it, is associated with tarantismo, a phenomenon present in that area for centuries and attested until the 1980s. Affecting mostly (but not only) women, tarantismo has been described in the form of malaise and physical suffering—sometimes also as a form of “possession”—thought to be provoked by the bite of tarantula spiders, and cured with pizzica music and dance. At the turn of the century tarantismo disappeared and new forms, called neotarantismi, emerged. Not specifically linked to suffering and healing anymore, they have been interpreted mainly as forms of identity politics. The Spider Dance describes a novel “spiritual” form of neotarantismo, whose relevance is not limited to a description of the cerchio and their Pagan practices. It also makes some key practical and theoretical contributions to the study of contemporary religions, of “historicities,” and to scholarly debates around “well-being,” in Italy and abroad.

Series: Contemporary and Historical Paganism

Table of Contents

Introduction

Introduction [+–]
Outlines the main research questions, arguments, and interventions of my ethnography in regard to current anthropological debates and related fields. Subsequent chapters are named for some of the Major Arcana of the Tarot: a divinatory practice widespread among Wiccans, New Age practitioners, and contemporary Pagans—and sed by the women of the cerchio. The “Journey of the Fool” in the Tarot is used metaphorically to describe the author’s own ethnographic journey and as an explanatory element to introduce the “expanded present” historicity.

Chapter 1

The Fool [+–]
This chapter presents the fieldwork, informants, and the research methods used through the description of a particular ethnographic moment that proved to be central in the fieldwork experience: the author’s first Tarot reading. It describes many of the most common beliefs and practices of Pagan, Wiccan, and New Age spiritualities that trhe author encountered during the fieldwork, representing a sort of “introduction” to New Age and Neopagan spiritualities.

Chapter 2

The Magician [+–]
By narrating the ethnographic experience of a “pilgrimage” to Galatina in occasion of the Festival of Saint Peter and Paul the author undertook with members of the cerchio, she analyzes the scholarly discourse around pizzica and the phenomenon of tarantismo in Salento. Some of the main ideas of the scholar Ernesto de Martino, still very influential among both academics and Salentinians, are engaged critically and an argument is presented in favor of a “spiritual neotarantismo”—a relatively new phenomenon, not studied in depth (or dismissed superficially) before this ethnographic work. Some of the beliefs and practices of the Sisters, such as the pursuit of bellezza (beauty) as a spiritual practice, the importance of desire, and the notion of becoming are described in detail and their connections with what Jung called “synchronicities” are outlined.

Chapter 3

The High Priestess [+–]
This chapter presents the particular historicity found among the women of the cerchio that the author calls the “expanded present.” She narrates her own journey as a pizzica novice, and describes in greater detail the cerchio’s relationship with pizzica. In doing so, she relies, on the one hand, on the ethnographic materials gathered among the women of the cerchio. On the other hand, she locates and explains the “expanded present” historicity in dialogue with the works of Augustine of Hippo, Erich Auerbach, and Walter Benjamin. In particular, the author focuses on the notion of figura in Auerbach, and on that of “dialectical image” in Benjamin. The overall claim is that “pre-modernity” is not the only alternative to “modernity.” As the ethnographic material suggests, there are “non-modern” experiences and beliefs embedded in contemporary “modern” Europe. While “non-modern,” they are not necessarily “pre-modern.”

Chapter 4

Justice [+–]
This chapter address in detail spiritual practices such as family constellations and Akashic Records readings by describing the ethnographic experience with both during the author’s stay with the Sisters of the cerchio. These practices put synchronically in dialogue different dimensions of time and aim at changing the past through a specific engagement with the present. In doing so, these practices are a good way for enquiring some of the consequences of using the “historicity filter” in the study of Neopaganism and of magic, more generally. The author argues, in conversation with the work of scholars such as social anthropologist Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah (1990) and anthropologist of magic Susan Greenwood, that an understanding of temporality as an “expanded present” may redefine both some of the attributes traditionally associated with “magical thinking” (such as that of cause/effect) and the categories used in order to make sense of Neopagan practices.

Chapter 5

The World [+–]
The author addresses more explicitly relationships between the “expanded present” historicity and well-being. Insights are presented on how the women of the cerchio are “karmically” conceiving their lives from the point of view of the persons who they are, only not yet—that is, how they focus on their own becoming, within an “expanded present” perspective, as a source of well-being. Moreover, in dialogue with current debates around well-being and in medical anthropology, the author offers some possible suggestions of how this particular narrative can be used in “healing” settings, or in those that aim to promote well-being.

Conclusion

Conclusions [+–]
The different contributions of the book are summarized and possible directions for future research are suggested.

ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9780000000000
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9780000000000
Price (Paperback)
£24.95 / $32.00
ISBN (eBook)
9780000000000
Price (eBook)
Individual
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
Publication
01/05/2023
Pages
224
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
scholars
Illustration
7 figures

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