A People's History of Magic & Mysticism

Catalog description

TAUGHT BY GTU. Is a course designed to offer students at the GTU the opportunity to gain skills or increased competency in the still emergent field of "Western esotericism" or "mysticism." Students will get the opportunity to understand some of the major concepts, critiques, and debates in the field. This course will offer a decolonial counter narrative critical of past academic claims using the practices, lives, epistemology, and ontology of Black esoteric practitioners of the Americas. Critical study is needed not just because of its resurgence in American consciousness over the last 20 years, but also to challenge the overtly Western European worldview and roots. Examining this area of emergent spirituality practiced by a large portion of modern society with an anti-racist lens, students and instructors can start to disentangle these traditions from the constructs of "whiteness." This course is taught by PhD student Lenny Duncan with a Newhall Award, under the supervision of Devin Zuber.