(Re)presenting Magic, (un)doing Evil: Of Human Inner Light and Darkness

The chapters assembled in this e-Book are a taste of an ongoing discussion on evil and magic which promises to last as long as 'the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' and while the realisation that 'magic is believing in yourself: if you can do that, you can make anything happen' does not become a global motto. The first group of chapters, collected in Part I, addresses the ethics and effects of translating magic into literary representations, as well as real-life current practices, of creativity and personal change on the one hand, and of the harmful, malevolent infliction of pain on a third party on another, thus challenging the boundaries of the cultural binary constructions of magic as either good or evil. In Part II, the second group of chapters examines several philosophical, theological, historical, literary, political and pop culture attempts towards understanding different meanings, and kinds, of evil, thus broadening our perception of what evil is and how it has been theorized from Plato to contemporary international politics. This is our time, our call, our responsibility, to undo evil by carrying the magical torch of good to the next station - so that good, as if by magic, can also become contagious among the human kind.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Alexandra Cheira PART 1: Magic and the Supernatural Revisited: An Overview of White and Black Powers Change Your Princesses, Change Thyself: Magic and Metamorphosis in Madame d'Aulnoy's Wonder Tales and Wondrous Life in Seventeenth-Century France Alexandra Cheira Reset: Harry Potter in Hong Kong, as Western Dominance Gives Way to Eastern Powers Christina A. DeCoursey Not Brains, Just Voodoo: A Zombie in Disney's Donald Duck Comics Katja Kontturi Healers, Heretics and Witches: African Diviners and Pagan Witches Contest the Boundaries of Religion and Magic in Africa Dale Wallace PART 2: Situating Evil within the Cultural Framework of the Humanities and Popular Culture Plato and the Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Evil Viktor Ilievski Aristotle's Analysis of Evil in De Virtutibus et Vitiis Apostolos N. Stavelas Fire in the Valley: John Chrysostom's Thoughts on The Land of Sodom Stephen Morris How Jonathan Edwards Unmasks Religious Hypocrisy Bruce W. Davidson Necessary, Evil and Contagious: Public Execution and the Construction of the English Crowd, 1800-1868 Stephen Banks Writing as Evil Nuno Amado Being Moral, Being Polite Regan Lance Reitsma 'We Do Not Torture': American Exceptionalism in the Context of Torture Mikko Poutanen

About the Author :
Alexandra Cheira is a researcher at the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES), Portugal and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. Her current areas of research include contemporary women’s writing, women’s studies and, particularly, gender issues and wonder tales in A.S.Byatt’s fiction.