Giovanna Parmigiani: The Spider Dance. Tradition, Time and Healing in Southern Italy

Datum
02. Juni 2025 

Online Con­ver­sa­tion

NAo­HH (Net­work for an Anthro­pol­o­gy of His­to­ry) are delight­ed to announce our next online In Con­ver­sa­tion with Gio­van­na Parmigiani. 

Gio­van­na Parmi­giani (Har­vard Divin­i­ty School, CSWR) will dis­cuss her book The Spi­der Dance: Tra­di­tion, Time and Heal­ing in South­ern Italy with Susan Green­wood (Inde­pen­dent) and Helen Cor­nish (Gold­smiths). There will be plen­ty of time for ques­tions and fur­ther conversations.
Date: Mon­day June 2
Time: 16.00–18.00 GMT/17.00–19.00 CET/11.00–13.00 EDT 

The event is free and will take place on zoom – please sign up for the link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/naohh-spider-dance-in-conversation-with-giovanna-parmigaini-tickets-1336527913969?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Spi­der Dance: Tra­di­tion, Time and Heal­ing in South­ern Italy: https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/spider-dance/
Based on ethno­graph­ic research among con­tem­po­rary Pagan com­mu­ni­ties in South­ern Italy (Salen­to, Apu­lia), 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. The Spi­der Dance looks at local Pagans and at their rit­u­al prac­tice and inter­pre­ta­tion of the tra­di­tion­al dance and music called pizzi­ca. Pizzi­ca is asso­ci­at­ed with taran­tismo, a phe­nom­e­non present in that area for hun­dreds of years and attest­ed until the sec­ond half of the XX cen­tu­ry. Affect­ing most­ly (but not only) women, taran­tismo has been described in the form of malaise and phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing thought to be pro­voked by the bite of taran­tu­la spi­ders and cured with pizzi­ca music and dance. At the turn of the cen­tu­ry taran­tismo dis­ap­peared and new forms, called neo­taran­tis­mi, emerged. The Spi­der Dance describes a nov­el “spir­i­tu­al” form of neo­taran­tismo and high­lights its con­nec­tions with con­tem­po­rary forms of mag­ic and heal­ing. The rel­e­vance of The Spi­der Dance is not lim­it­ed to a descrip­tion of par­tic­u­lar Pagan groups and prac­tices. It also makes some key prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to the anthro­po­log­i­cal study of mag­ic, of con­tem­po­rary reli­gions, of “his­toric­i­ties,” and to schol­ar­ly debates around com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine and “well-being,” in Italy and abroad.