The Witch as a Queer Figure
Published on Nov 22, 2015
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MORE DECKS TO EXPLORE
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
QUEERING THE POSSIBILITIES
“The task is to trace the lines for a different genealogy, one that would embrace the failure to inherit the family line as the condition of possibility for another way of dwelling in the world.” (Ahmed, Queer Phemenology)”
“[Theorists like Eve Kosofsky Hedgwick and Judith Butler] emphasize queer...as a contestatory politics of feeling, attitude, and behavior as played out in real time…as a doing that is out of sync…”
(Landrau, “Queer Insubjectivity”)
Photo by VinothChandar
WITCHES IN THE WITCH-HUNTING ERA
How has the witch been framed, constructed, and eventually re-appropriated as a “queer figure” throughout history?
How does she represent a challenge to prevailing societal structures and orders?
patriarchy
heterosexuality
domesticity
binaries
Photo by Pink Cow Photography
What Do They Have in Common?
An Existential Threat?
Sula : threatening, distance from men & domesticity
Malleus Maleficarum
The witch as villain :
campy roles, i.e. Ursula, Bette Midler
Photo by kevin dooley
The Domesticated Witch
Societal desire to subdue the witch
Taming of the Shrew
Bewitched
I Married a Witch : "love is stronger than witchcraft"
Photo by Pink Cow Photography
Female Kinship
Homosociality/Homosexuality
Consistently about the bonds between women
2nd wave feminism
Sual & Nel
Mother/daughter passing on powers : Bewitched
Father/daughter : I Married a Witch; name change; can never fully possess her
Photo by Bhumika.B
The Contemporary Witch
Timeline : movement to insert queerness into texts
LGBT Figure : Wizard of Oz/Wicked; Buffy/Willow
American Horror Story : queer?
Photo by anna thetical
Fanfiction
Girl power & Misunderstood Witches
Snow White
Once Upon A Time : Regina misunderstood, mother/daughter relationship with Emma & slash
Snow White and the Huntsman
Evil Witch = Response to Patriarchy
Photo by nathangibbs
