Book

The witch studies reader / Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, editors.

Chauduri, Soma (editor). Chaudhuri, Soma, 1977- (editor.). Ward, Elizabeth Jane, (editor.).

Summary:

"The past decade has seen a resurgence of the esoteric and the occult into the Western mainstream, often as a queer feminist way to claim the power of the irrational and the "natural" world, and as a way of integrating critiques of colonial rationality into everyday practices. At the same time, poor, indigenous, and/or aging women across the global South are persecuted and even murdered for their real and imagined associations with practices that also fall under the umbrella of witchcraft. The Witch Studies Reader attempts to hold both of these truths together, offering a transnational feminist perspective on the power and the persecution of the witch, taking into account the vastly different national, political economic, and cultural contexts in which she is being claimed and repudiated. Essays topics range from matrilinear knowledge sharing in Appalachia and witchy women in 1960s rock counter-culture to witch killings in Tanzania and the "decolonial love" of Romani witchcraft practices closed to outsiders. This pathbreaking and field-defining transnational feminist examination of witches and witchcraft is the first collection to examine witchcraft from a critical feminist perspective that decenters Europe and departs from anthropological and exoticizing or pathologizing writing on witchcraft in the global south"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781478031352
ISBN: 9781478028130
Physical Description: 440 p. ;
Publisher: Durham : Duke University Press, 2025.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction to the Reader: Manifesting Witch Studies / Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward -- Witchcraft in My Community : Healing Sex and Sexuality / Tushabe wa Tushabe, Patricia Humura, and Ruth Asiimwe -- "What Is a Witch?" : Tituba's Subjunctive Challenge / Nathan Snaza -- Irish Feminist Witches : Using Witchcraft and Activism to Heal from Violence and Trauma / Shannon Hughes Spence -- Whose Craft? : Contentions on Open and Closed Practice in Contemporary Witchcraft(s) / Apoorva Joshi and Ethel Brooks -- "You Deserve, Baby!" : Spiritual Cocreation, Black Witches, and Feminism / Marcelitte Failla -- Resurrecting Granny : A Brief Excavation of Appalachian Folk Magic / Brandy Renee McCann -- "Some Decks May Be Stacked against Us but This Deck Is Ours" : Justice-Centered Tarot in and against the New Age / Krystal Cleary -- Ecstatic Desires : Queerness and the Witch's Body / Simon Clay and Emma Quilty -- Deitsch Magic Past and Future / Eric Steinhart -- "We Are Here with Our Rebellious Joy" : Witches and Witchcraft in Turkey / Ayça Kurtoğlu -- Fortune-Telling, Women's Friendship, and Divination Commodification in Contemporary Italy / Morena Tartari -- A Feminist Theory of Witch Hunts / Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan -- Occult Violence and the Savage Slot : Understanding Tanzanian Witch-Killings in / Historical and Ethnographic Context / Amy Nichols-Belo -- Going All the Way : From Village to Supreme Court for a Witch-Killing in Central India / Helen Macdonald -- Contemporary Trends in Witch-Hunting in India / Shashank Shekhar Sinha -- Bewitching Gender History / Adrianna L. Ernstberger -- Mista Boo : Portrait of a Drag Witch / Isabel Machado -- Witching Sound in the Anthropocene (and Occultcene) / D Ferrett -- Witch's Guide to the Underground : Sixties Counterculture, Dianic Wicca, and the Cultural Trope of the "Witchy Diva" / Shelina Brown -- A Queer Critical Analysis of Contemporary Representations of the Churail in Hindi Film / Saira Chhibber -- Pakistan's Churails : Young Feminists Choosing "Witch" Way Is Forward / Maria Amir -- From "Born This Witch" to "Bad Bitch Witch" : A History of Witch Representation in Western Pop Culture / Jaime Hartless and Gabriella V. Smith -- "I Put a Spell on You and Now You're Mine" : A Vulvacentric Reading of Witchcraft / Anna Rogel -- Hexing the Patriarchy : The Revolutionary Aesthetics of W.I.T.C.H. / Carolyn Chernoff -- Witch-Ins and Other Feminist Acts / Tina Escaja and Laurie Essig -- Disappearing Acts : Attending "Witch School" in Brooklyn, New York / Jacquelyn Marie Shannon -- We Are All Witches : My Pagan Journey / Bernadette Barton -- Witching the Institution: Academia and Feminist Witchcraft / Ruth Charnock and Karen Schaller -- A Ruderal Witchcraft Manifesto / Margaretha Haughwout and Oliver Kellhammer -- Feminism as a Demon, or, The Difference Witches Make : Chiara Fumai with Carla Lonzi / Nicole Trigg -- Reclaiming Magic for the Study of Religion / Mary Jo Neitz and Marion S. Goldman -- Crafting against Capitalism : Queer Longings for Witch Futures / Katie Von Wald and AP Pierce.