SoMA Autumn Newsletter 2022
Happy Halloween from SoMA!
Hey all- I'd like to start out with a somewhat belated Thank You to everyone who contributed to the success of our summer conference! It was amazing to be able to hold an in person event again, albiet during a somewhat apocalyptic feeling London heatwave. Variously featuring robots, ruses, laughter, monkey grips, mind control, centaurs, traffic accidents, and paranormal investigations, it was amazing to see the development and emergence of diverse magic-related projects from around the world. As a committee, we've taken a bit of a post conference cool-down, but at this point, we're back to planning next steps for SoMA, including pop-up virtual events that will hopefully be kicking-off in November, and we're already in the initial stages of plotting the next big conference for 2024.
We look forward to sharing more details about upcoming SoMA events soon, and, in the meantime, there is actually a free SoM-related virtual book launch event happening TODAY. And here's some of the latest science of magic-related news from the past couple months including new publications, podcasts, not one but TWO special issues, calls for papers, and nice update about the Cambridge Comparative Cognition Lab.
Stay safe & sane,
Matt Tompkins
On Behalf of the SoMA Committee
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SoM Halloween Retrospective: Marriott's 'Edge of the Unknown'
In honor of the spooky season, I'd like to open by sharing a series of magazine articles that were published in Pearson's Magazine in 1910 by William Marriott aka "Dr. WIlmar". I appreciate that 100+ year-old publications don't entirely qualify as 'news', but I'm taking some editorial liberties here, and these articles do offer an excellent window into the into the interplay between science, magic, and spiritualism in the early part of the 20th century. And those sorts of interactions arguably set the stage for the contemporary science of magic scene.
You can read the full series HERE
PS: If any readers happen to know what happened to Marriott later in his life, please do drop me an email! There seem to be very few records of his activities beyond the early 20's. |
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SoMA 2022 Conference Recordings
While the conference was a big success overall, we did run into a few technical snags when it came to the streaming and recording of the conference talks. However, thanks to some heroic editing work by Tony Barnhart and with the kind permission of the speakers, we are happy to share a selection of recordings form the conference program
You can see the collection of recordings HERE |
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Special Science & Magic Issue of Vanish Magazine
Vanish Magazine recently released a special issue, guest edited by Adam Fleischer & Vito Lupo, devoted to Science and Magic. The issue features an excellent variety of pieces, some written by familiar SoMA contributors, including Gustav Kuhn, Jason Leddington, Anthony Barnhart, Jeanette Andrews, Peter Prevos, and Jamy Ian Swiss.
The full issue is freely available to read HERE
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Call for Papers: Magic & Law
Christine Corcos, and Daniel J. Solove are currently soliciting proposals for a new edited volume of essays on the topic of magic and the law. Contributors can be from any discipline, and potential topics can include (but are not limited to): The law of fortune telling, tarot, phrenology, or other crafty sciences, The history of law and magic, Law and religion, Law as magic, Law and magic in popular culture, Law and magic in anthropology, Literature reviews of law and magic topics, Magic in the courtroom (using magic in advocacy)
You can view details on the call HERE
And you can direct any questions directly to Christine via email: ccorcos@lsu.edu
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New Paper: Misinformation and Psychic Debunking
If you're in the market for a more contemporary perspective of psychic debunking, Gustav Kuhn, Jeniffer Ortega, Keir Simmons, Cyril Thomas, and Christine Mohr have published a new paper in The Quarterly Journal of Psychology that describes a series of experiments where participants were exposed to fake psychic demonstrations. They report how pre- and post-exposure warnings about fakery can mitigate the effects of the apparent psychic demonstrations on the participants' beliefs about psychic powers.
Read the full paper HERE
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New Paper: Exploring Personality Traits of FISM World Champions of Magic
Wojciech Napora and Guilhem Julia have published a new paper how the Big Five personality traits relate to mindfulness levels in FISM World Champions of Magic.
Read the full paper HERE
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New Paper: Magic & Machine Learning
A new paper by Xinxu Shen, Troy Houser, David V. Smith, and Vishnu P. Murty has been published that explores the application of a natural language processing tool, the Universal Sentence Encoder (USE), to automatically score narrative recalls of participant descriptions of short magic trick videos.
You can read the full paper HERE
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New Paper: Magic & Physics Education
A new paper by Fred Becchetti discusses the use of magic in the classroom, advocating the use of specific tricks and illusions that are particularly designed to illustrate physics concepts
You can read the full paper HERE
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Cambridge Comparative Cognition Lab Has Been Saved!
Last but not least: Some excellent news. We had previously shared that Prof. Nicola Clayton's Cambridge-based laboratory, which has produced some excellent SoM-related comparative cognition research, was in jeopardy of being shuttered due to Brexit-related funding issues. Happily, the lab has been officially been saved through a combination of public fund raising and an intervention by Cambridge University. Congrats to Professor Clayton and colleagues, and thanks to everyone who supported their appeal!
You can read the full story via the Guardian
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