Ernesto De Martino on Religion—The Crisis and the Presence

Ernesto de Martino (1908-1965) is one of the brightest critical thinkers of the 20th century in both the humanities and social sciences. Despite his immense contribution to the study of religion and anthropology, his name is seldom mentioned in basic academic resources and few of his works have been translated in English to date (amongst these: Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers, 1948 and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism, 1961). For decades de Martino's popularity was limited to Italy and France and to those interested in Italian folklore and popular Catholicism (mainly in south Italy and Romania). The methodology developed by Ernesto de Martino stems from his training under historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and developed through a reformulation of Heidegger and Hegel's existentialism. His philosophical anthropology, which borrows from Marx and Gramsci, allowed him to produce innovative analyses of the epistemic force of key concepts in the study of religion such as 'folklore', 'magic' and 'ritual'. With the popularity of subaltern studies and its focus on the figure of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), a burgeoning interest around the figure of de Martino has decreed his centrality within religious studies, with particular reference to the study of vernacular religions and folklore studies. This volume aims to fill a gap within religious studies by providing a comprehensive overview of Ernesto de Martino's life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the applications of his methodological approach in contemporary scholarship.

Fabrizio M. Ferrari is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies and Hinduism at the University of Chester. His publications include a study of the Bauls of Bengal (Oltre il confine, dove la terra e rossa: Canti d'amore e d'estasi dei Baul del Bengala, Ariele, 2001) and an examination of the gajan festival of Bengal (Guilty Males and Proud Females: Negotiating Genders in a Bengali Festival, Seagull, 2011). He is the editor of Health and Religious Rituals in South Asia: Disease, Possession and Healing (Routledge, 2011).