Join us at The Idler Academy for a night of magic, folk-lore and fable with novelist, critic and cultural historian, Marina Warner. As part of her exploration into the prophetic enchantments of the Arabian Nights, Marina will retell some of the most wonderful and lesser known stories, drawing from her latest book, Stanger Magic. She will explore the figure of the dark magician or magus, from Solomon to the wicked uncle in Aladdin; the complex vitality of the jinn, or genies; animal metamorphoses and flying carpets. Her narrative reveals that magical thinking, as conveyed by these stories, governs many aspects of experience, even now. In this respect, the east and west have been in fruitful dialogue.
“Stranger Magic is a labor of love, an academic work which often reads like a fireside conversation. It’s encyclopediac, a book to be savored in slices… Warner’s conclusion reminds us of her organising principle: the uses of enchantment to open new possibilities of thought and sympathy, indeed the necessity of magic, especially in a self-consciously “rational” and secular
world.”
Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian
“Warner’s Stranger Magic is an exuberantly clever investigation of the role of magic in the way we think, which harvests the Arabian Nights for stories and figures to demonstrate her case. It considers the fascination of the unexplained, and the uses of enchantment (a phrase inevitably reminiscent of psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim) in a secular, sceptical world. The stories in the Nights are, after all, wild and fantastic fairy-tales that hit their massive European popularity at the height of the Age of Reason. Warner opens a portal to all the
aja’ib – the wonders – in the Nights and shows us why such things have had, and continue to have, such sustained impact.”
Daniel Hahn, Independent
Marina Warner is a novelist, critic, lecturer, and broadcaster, but pre-eminently a cultural historian. She is the author of a number of works of fiction and non-fiction, including critical studies, novels and children’s books. She contributes essays, articles and reviews to newspapers, journals and artists’ catalogues. Much of her writing is concerned with an analysis of the mythology, folklore and archetypes surrounding the feminine throughout history, as expressed in art, literary texts and fables.
Marina Warner holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Exeter, York and St Andrews, as well as honorary doctorates from Sheffield Hallam University and the University of North London. Academic appointments include Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge; Mellon Professor at Pittsburgh University (1997); Visiting Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford; and Visiting Professor, Birkbeck College, University of London. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1985 and an honorary fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Marina Warner was awarded a CBE in 2008.
Her last book, Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors and Media into the Twenty-first Century (2006), explores the idea of spirit and soul since the Enlightenment. Her latest book is Stranger Magic, published by Chatto & Windus (2011)
Date: Wednesday 7 March 2012
Time: 6.30pm for 7pm. Ends 8.30pm
Place: The Idler Academy, 81 Westbourne Park Road, London W2 5QH. Tel 0207 221 5908
Cost: £20/£15 concession/£10 member. Price includes free wine, nibbles.
Members please telephone to book. To book online, click here.
