[Commlist] CFP for Edited Volume: "You can't burn us all": Witches, Media, and the Magic of Resistance

CFP for Edited Volume:
 "You can't burn us all": Witches, Media, and the Magic of Resistance

Edited volume editor: Laura Vermeeren (l.vermeeren /at/ uva.nl);
The witch is back, or perhaps she never really left us - despite all the 
well-known efforts to suppress her presence. The witch, we argue, is now 
more visible than ever before, and has become a versatile and 
highly-adaptable figure. She is often encoded as a representation of 
female rebellion, but has also become a symbol of resistance against 
impending ecological disaster in an ecofeminist framework. She appears 
more and more frequently in the rhetoric of political discourse: 
competent, powerful women in politics are labeled as 'witches' to 
undermine their authority and challenge their resistance to patriarchal 
power. The metaphor of the witch is used to delegitimize political 
adversaries, such as in the media's use of 'witch hunts'. We find the 
witch in an ever-growing line-up of films and television series with 
recent examples such as Wandavision (2021); The Unbinding (2023); 
Motherland Fort Salem (2020) ; Luna Nera (2020). We see her also in 
video games (Bayonetta, Grim legends, The Witcher, Mika and the Witch's 
Mountain Kiki's Delivery Service), and finally, we find versions of the 
witch appear in many iterations on #WitchTok, a digital subculture 
within platform TikTok that revolves around the performance, exchange, 
and commodification of types of witchcraft. With over 40.5 billion views 
and growing in popularity since 2019, #WitchTok serves as a lens through 
which we can examine how the witch and witchcraft- often still 
envisioned as both a gendered and a marginalized practice-is being 
reimagined and repopularised. This type of communal online witchcraft 
opens up space for collective agency such as hexing prominent figures, 
challenging the traditionally more solitary practice of witchcraft. At 
the same time, its decentralized nature invites practices that 
prioritize self-care and individual aesthetic expression - an 
Instagrammable version of the witch, where female subjectivity is 
imagined as something holy and magical. This version of the witch 
connects lunar with menstrual cycles and fertility, presenting the woman 
as a spiritual, almost godlike being. 				

The witch in all of these discourses, we observe and note tentatively, 
remains by and large a white figure. Traditions such as voodoo, or 
rootwork are ignored or exoticized and relegated to the periphery of the 
story of the European witch. Historically, witchcraft has functioned - 
or is anachronistically imagined to have functioned - as a 
countercultural movement symbolizing resistance to patriarchal and 
colonial oppression. Today, we find the witch reimagined in so many 
different ways that pigeonholing her as a female anomaly is no longer 
possible. This edited volume therefore invites interdisciplinary 
research that critically engages with the symbolic and cultural 
reinvention of the witch in popular and online media today. We intend to 
examine the witch not just as a popular media figure, but as a cultural 
symbol that disrupts and reimagines both historical and contemporary 
narratives. This volume seeks to investigate how contemporary iterations 
of the witch are shaped by, and also actively reshape, history, cultural 
memory, heritage, ecofeminist practices and the self. We encourage 
submissions that explore a variety of topics, including but not limited to:

-	Commodification, consumerism, and the aestheticization of witchcraft 
on digital platforms.
-	The feminist/counter feminist potential -	The use of the witch as a 
symbol of resistance and subversion in political discourse.
-	Rituals and ecological practices within digital witchcraft as 
expressions of environmental stewardship. -	Representations of witches 
in contemporary films, series, and games
-	The role of self-care, bodily cycles, and self-representation in 
mediated witchcraft.
-	Historical legacies and cultural heritages of witchcraft reinterpreted 
in the context of modern digital activism.

Submission Guidelines
The volume is set to be part of the library of Gender and Popular 
Culture series at Bloomsbury. We encourage an interdisciplinary approach 
drawing from media studies, cultural analysis, feminist theory, cultural 
studies, and digital humanities. Contributions should be between 
5,000-7,000 words. No payment from the authors will be required.
Proposals are due by March 31, 2025. Please submit proposals (300-500 
words) to (l.vermeeren /at/ uva.nl). Abstracts should include a brief biography 
(100 words) and a working title. Authors of selected abstracts will be 
invited to submit full chapters.


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