Roundtable on 'The Spider Dance' (Equinox, 2024) by Giovanna Parmigiani (Harvard Divinity School and CSWR)

Based on ethnographic research among contemporary Pagan communities in Southern Italy. The Spider Dance challenges (uni)linear ideas and experiences of time and temporality by showing the interconnectedness of alternative historicities, healing, and place-making among persons engaged in reviving, continuing, or re-creating traditional Pagan practices. Parmigiani examines local Pagans, their ritual practices associated with dance / music called pizzica. Pizzica is associated with tarantismo, a phenomenon present and attested until the second half of the 20th century. Affecting mostly (but not only) women, tarantismo has been described as physical suffering created by the bite of tarantulas and cured with pizzica. At the turn of the century tarantismo disappeared and new forms, called neotarantismi, emerged. The Spider Dance highlights connections with contemporary forms of magic and healing. The Spider Dance also makes key contributions to the anthropological study of magic, of contemporary religions, of “historicities,” and to scholarly debates in Italy and abroad.