RESEARCH TOPICS AND RESOURCES-WITCHCRAFT

"You Have Witchcraft in Your Lips": Sensory Witchcraft in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth</i

Article · April 2020   Hannah Kanninen

Scholarship on witches and witchcraft within Shakespeare’s plays has been a popular subject for many scholars. But one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters has not yet been integrated into this scholarship: Cleopatra from Antony and Cleopatra. Although scholars have often noted her “witchiness,” none have argued for an interpretation of Cleopatra as a witch. This is because traditional definitions of witchcraft have not been able to include Cleopatra. In comparison, Lady Macbeth from Macbeth has often been cited as the fourth witch in the play. But this interpretation relies upon examining Lady Macbeth’s perceived masculinity, which subsequently also makes her the most reviled in the play. Both Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra are powerful female characters who have witch-like qualities. They are seductive and intimidating and consider their own passions first and foremost. Using the tools within the domestic sphere and their own feminine wiles, the power of witchcraft allowed women to move from affairs of the household to affairs of the state. Shakespeare was clearly interested in the connection between female power and witchcraft. He was not afraid to utilize this feminine power for dramatic purposes, but also recognized its chaotic potential, thus ensuring those endowed with such power must perish or fail. In this thesis, I will explore the historical depiction of the power of witchcraft in conjunction with the senses, arguing that Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of the senses can be interpreted as witchcraft. This form of witchcraft, which I will refer to as sensory witchcraft, stems from the characters’ innate feminine qualities rather than the taking on of masculine qualities. Advisor: Julia Schleck

LINK:   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340885278_You_Have_Witchcraft_in_Your_Lips_Sensory_Witchcraft_in_Shakespeare%27s_Antony_and_Cleopatra_and_Macbethi

Witchcraft in Africa     

-Chapter · January 2019 with 99 Reads DOI: 10.1002/9781119251521.ch3 ·In book: A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa, pp.63-79

James H. Smith

This chapter explains the commitments that differ in certain respects from other anthropologists whose work engages with the dynamics and meanings of witchcraft in contemporary life throughout Africa. It discusses the ways in which the frameworks and questions that animate current anthropological debates and investigations of witchcraft both draw upon. In this genre of work, the ideas about witchcraft sometimes come to resemble social theory. There is a major disconnect between anthropological interpretations of African witchcraft and African experiences of them. The idea of the standardized nightmare is loosely functionalist, in that these rumors are deemed to have some kind of purpose in relation to the life of the group ‐ they remind people of their core values by providing an oppositional representation, a foil, against which these anxieties become tangible and real.

LINK:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330640977_Witchcraft_in_Africa

Popular cultures and witchcraft

Chapter · September 2019 with 6 Reads DOI: 10.4324/9780429324574-14 ·

In book: Interpreting Early Modern Europe, pp.356-387

Kathryn A. Edwards

Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland

Book · July 2015 with 174 Reads DOI: 10.1057/9781137319173

Edition: 1st

Isbn: 978-0-230-30272-3

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9780230302723

Andrew Sneddon

This is the first academic overview of Irish witchcraft. Based on a wide range of sources, it is a highly original and innovative study of beneficial and harmful magic, from the later medieval period up until the twentieth century. It examines the dynamics of witchcraft belief and accusation in the early modern period, and offers new explanations for the lack of sustained witch-hunting in Ireland. It demonstrates that during the eighteenth century sections of the educated elite backed away from witchcraft belief for largely ideological reasons, while the witch figure remained a strong part of popular culture. Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland also offers a new interpretation of the role of cunning-folk and popular magic in Irish society, along with a re-assessment of the attitudes of religious authorities, both Protestant and Catholic, to their activities. The way in which suspected witches and cunning-folk were treated by the Irish legal system, both before and after the repeal of the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act in 1821, is also explored for the first time.

LINK:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316165734_Witchcraft_and_Magic_in_Ireland

Border Crossing: Exploring the impact of African scholarship on Indian witchcraft studies- DEC 2016

Helen M Macdonald

This paper explores the impact of nearly a century of African witchcraft studies on emerging research from India. The legacy of E.E. Evans-Pritchard, renowned as the father of witchcraft studies, has acted to define where and how scholars of witchcraft studies did their research. Over time, anthropological conventions became fixed, as a generation of studies emphasised the sociology of the accusation at the expense of the structure of belief, and other sites failed to emerge as scholars made their way to Africa to conduct their research. In the post-colonial era witchcraft studies disappeared as scholars highlighted the discipline's colonial and euro-centric past, the anthropologist's role as colonial advisor and the role of anthropology in the imaginings of Africa in the West. It has subsequently re-emerged with a new generation of Africanist scholars (Geschiere, the Comaroffs, Niehaus and Ashforth) whom have sought to disentangle witchcraft studies from Africa and the colonial project by focusing on modernity, post colonialism, violence and where alternative beliefs to those imagined as rational can and should be engaged. However, rather than engaging with this theoretical shift, Indian witchcraft studies appear to have exported old African colonial paradigms. Drawing on fieldwork, I trace how Indian scholarship is trapped in structural functionalism frameworks leading to conclusions that homogenise and normalise both the actors and the accusation. Recent scholarship continues to position witchcraft accusations as a feature or 'menacing custom' of ādivāsī (indigenous) culture rather than politicised discourses that challenge ideas of development, progress and modernity. I argue that Indian scholars would benefit from contemporary African scholarship from which to derive new theoretical models. Introduction:

LINK:   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311515523_Border_Crossing_Exploring_the_impact_of_African_scholarship_on_Indian_witchcraft_studies