Sorcery and Sovereignty: Bodin’s Political Economy of the Occult
While much has been written on Six Books on the Commonwealth and his Demonmania, scholarship on Jean Bodin generally treats these as two separate areas of inquiry. Moreover, discussions of Bodin’s economic writing, especially his Reply to Malestroit are nearly universally lacking in these discussion...
| Published in: | Political theology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2020]
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2020, Volume: 21, Issue: 6, Pages: 479-495 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bodin, Jean 1529-1596
/ Political economy
/ Magic
/ Sovereignty
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| RelBib Classification: | AA Study of religion KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history NCE Business ethics ZC Politics in general |
| Further subjects: | B
Sovereignty
B Witchcraft B peasant revolt B Political Economy B mercantilism B Bodin |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | While much has been written on Six Books on the Commonwealth and his Demonmania, scholarship on Jean Bodin generally treats these as two separate areas of inquiry. Moreover, discussions of Bodin’s economic writing, especially his Reply to Malestroit are nearly universally lacking in these discussions. In this paper, I analyze all three of these works together, arguing that Bodin’s political economic perspectives on money, population, and the state form the ground for his interest in witches, sorcery, and the occult. By highlighting the historical context of rising mercantilism and the widespread peasant rebellions that contested it, I argue that Bodin’s maintains a unified and coherent philosophy across his political, economic, theological, and demonological works. This materialist reinterpretation of Bodin argues that his philosophy chiefly concerns a defense of mercantile state wealth accumulation, in which witch hunting plays a crucial role of population discipline and reproductive pronatalism. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1719 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2020.1730539 |