The TiTaRa: Between Science and Magic Symposium was a great success! The symposium was held on 10–11 October here in Turku together with the Finnish Network of Magic Studies to explore topics such as Western esotericism, magic, witchcraft and early sciences bordering them (such as alchemy and astrology). Participants arrived from around the world, and the topics varied from medieval England all the way to Finland in the 19th century and everything in between.
There were three of us assistants, and in addition to assisting at the symposium, there was a variety of things to do both before and after the event: checking the symposium’s emails, designing and setting up signposts and nameplates, compiling a book of abstracts of all the presentations and making social media posts… Some of these sounded a little intimidating at first for someone with no prior experience on such things but it turned out to not be too difficult after all because we had such a great team. Help was always available, and it was easy to divide some of the work between the three of us. During the symposium, our main responsibilities were working at the reception and assisting with the technology (thankfully no issues arose with the computer!).
Day 1 of the symposium started bright and early on a rainy October morning for us assistants and other organizers of the event. The first things to do were putting up signs outside so that all of our guests could find their way in and making sure the presentations of the day were set up and ready to go. Attendees started arriving a bit before 9 a.m., and our job was to welcome everyone at the reception and hand out nameplates. At 9:15 it was time to officially start the symposium! The first presentation was one of our two keynote speakers, Professor Egil Asprem from Stockholm University. The presentation was about Romani magic and the sexism & racism involved in it with most fortune tellers at the time being women, as well as the stereotypes surrounding it being fraud.
After the first presentation, we had a quick coffee break and then continued with two more presentations before lunch. As assistants, we divided the work so that one or two of us stayed at the reception and the other(s) helped with setting up the presentations (and had the perk of listening to them!). Hearing many of the presentations was honestly one of the best parts about being an assistant at a symposium with such an interesting theme! After lunch, there were three more presentations, and then it was time for coffee once more, followed later in the evening by a City of Turku reception and a dinner at Brewery Restaurant Koulu. After the coffee, we made sure everything was in order for the second day. The first day went by very quickly and left me more excited.
Day 2 started quite similarly for us as the first day. Friday’s first presentation was another one of our keynote speakers, Carla Suhr from the University of Helsinki, whose topic was witchcraft and medicine in early modern English witchcraft pamphlets. The presentation focused on the visual features of the pamphlets, advertisements of proprietary medicines and how they were presented to the audience. The second day passed by just as quickly as the first, with a total of six presentations in addition to Carla Suhr’s presentation. There was so much to learn, and everyone’s presentation added new perspectives to the theme of the symposium; I learned about the role of magic (and science) in astronomy & astrology, dance, dreams & nightmares and so much more! In a flash, the second day was finished too. Everything went even better than I had anticipated; we had no major issues and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
It was a great experience to learn about all that goes into organizing an event like this, and it felt inspiring to see how passionate everyone seemed to be about their own presentations, and all the discussion each presentation sparked among the attendees. During coffee breaks, it was nice to hear bits and pieces of conversations the attendees were having, often inspired by the previous presentations. I would recommend an assistant internship like this to everyone! It was such an interesting way to meet new people and to learn how academic events are organized. The topics were interesting, everyone was extremely kind, and it hardly felt like work at all. A big thank you to everyone who was part of the symposium!
Text and photos by Maija Riikonen