Intellectual History: HST 201E A

Conjuring and Illusion

Crispin Sartwell

c.sartwell@verizon.net

Bunting 417

Sleight of hand and stage conjuring, as well as related forms such as escapology and mentalism - which one might well consider arts or crafts - have a long and celebrated (if somewhat disreputable) history. In the hands of brilliant practitioners such as Robert-Houdin, the Davenport Brothers, Kellar, Slydini, or Penn and Teller, audiences who are well aware that they are being deceived can be brought to a real sense of wonder. The effects they create by optical and other means are related as well to the histories of the arts, especially the drama and painting, wherein perspective rendering and other "illusionistic" effects often manage to create a sense of reality within contexts that suspend the real. Religions almost always rely on "magic" of one kind or another, from raising the dead to predicting the future. This semester we will explore several contexts in which conjuring, illusion, and magic figure into our experience.

Required work for course consists of weekly one-page essays, on topics to be announced in class, and a longer (circa 7 pp.) mid-term. Your final project will consist of a strong magic trick to be performed for the class. I will need to approve your ideas, and as early as possible after the mid-term. There are many sources in books and magazines or on the internet for tricks, though I might suggest that you should start early and practice hard. Some good (and inexpensive) books: Now You See It, Now You Don't: Lessons in Sleight of Hand (Bill Tarr); The Royal Road to Card Magic (Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue) (I know many other card books: ask); Abbott's Encyclopedia of Rope Tricks for Magicians (Stewart James); Modern Coin Magic (J.B. Bobo); The Real Work: Essential Sleight of Hand for Street Operators (Paul Price) (emphasis on Three Card Monte, Shell Game etc).

Students with disabilities: please see me so that I can accommodate you.

Required texts:

Alfred Metraux, Voodoo in Haiti (Pantheon)

E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion (Princeton)

Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant (Carroll & Graf)

Milbourne Christopher, Magic: A Picture History (Dover)

January 20

Introduction

January 27

Steinmeyer, 1-90

February 3

Steinmeyer, 93-196

February 10

Steinmeyer, 199-331

February 17

Christopher, iv-98

February 24

Christopher, 99-211

March 2

Gombrich

March 9

Gombrich

mid-term paper due

March 23

Gombrich

March 30

Gombrich

April 6

Gombrich

April 13

Metraux, 15-119

presentations

April 20

Metraux, 120-212

presentations

April 27

Metraux, 212-366

presentations

May 4

Conclusion

presentations