起猛了！英国大学开设魔法硕士专业，网友：请开网课

The University of Exeter is seeking to harness growing interest in the subjects with a course that will explore the history and impact of witchcraft and magic around the world on society and science.

The multidisciplinary degree, which starts in September 2024, will draw on history, literature, philosophy, archaeology, sociology, psychology, drama and religion to show the role of magic on the west and the east.

The university said it was one of the only postgraduate courses of its kind in the UK to combine the study of the history of magic with such a wide range of other subjects.

Prof Emily Selove, course leader, said the MA in magic and occult science would reexamine "the assumption that the west is the place of rationalism and science, while the rest of the world is a place of magic and superstition", including how it underpins western culture, and how its relationship with the natural world can bring new perspectives to climate breakdown.

She said there was a "growing acknowledgment" in academia that texts dealing with magic or occult subjects have been “systematically neglected by scholarship” in medieval and early modern history, literature, and religion, as well as the history of science and philosophy.

Selove said there had been a lot of interest in the course since its launch, with the university receiving more than 100 inquiries.

Students will have the option to take modules on dragons in western literature and art, the legend of King Arthur, palaeography, Islamic thought, archaeological theory and practice, the depiction of women in the middle ages, the book in medieval and early modern Europe, gender, society and culture in early modern Europe.

The university said the course could prepare students for careers in teaching, counselling, mentoring, heritage and museum work, work in libraries, tourism, arts organisations or the publishing industry, among other areas of work.