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Consult the lists of relevant articles, books, theses, conference reports, and other scholarly sources on the topic 'Witches and witchcraft.'
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Journal articles on the topic "Witches and witchcraft":
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Taiwo, Olusegun Stephen. "The Social Burden of Witchcraft accusation and Its Victims: An Exercise in Philosophy." Yoruba Studies Review 5, no. 1.2 (December 21, 2021): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v5i1.2.130117.
The killing and burning of witches in contemporary era seem to be unabated. The contemporary minds have not succeeded in ‘scienticising’ belief in witchcraft. In Africa, Canada and India, the incidence, accusations and extrajudicial sanctions against witches are routine. The phenomenon of witchcraft is justified to be real. Before a misfortune could be plausibly attributed to witchcraft, it had to be seen as the outcome of a certain type of social situation. For in a witch-case the suspect was usually a person who had been involved in a relationship of real or presumed hostility towards the victim, then an accusation of witchcraft originated with someone living in close proximity to the suspect, and was meant to explain some local and personal misfortune. We then explain the socialization of witchcraft accusation in terms of the immediate social environment of the witch and her accuser. What we have in mind is that there are a lot of socialization between the witch and her victims in such a way that witches do not attack stranger and the victim can easily guess who is socially responsible for his/her misfortunes. We shall argue therefore, that once we are able to explain witchcraft causal reasonable explanation, the kind of metaphysical change of mind on witchcraft and the subsequent incidence, accusations and extrajudicial sanctions against witches would be reduced.
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Mara-McKay, Nico. "Witchcraft Pamphlets at the Dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment." Canadian Journal of History 56, no. 3 (December 1, 2021): 381–401. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cjh.56-3-2020-0038.
In 1563, witchcraft was established as a secular crime in Scotland and it remained so until 1736. There were peaks and valleys in the cases that emerged, were prosecuted, were convicted, and where people were executed for the crime of witchcraft, although there was a decline in cases after 1662. The Scottish Enlightenment is characterized as a period of transition and epistemological challenge and it roughly coincides with this decline in Scottish witchcraft cases. This article looks at pamphlets published in the vernacular between 1697 and 1705, either within Scotland or elsewhere, that focused on Scottish witches, witchcraft, or witch hunting. Often written anonymously, these popular pamphlets about witches, witchcraft, and witch trials reveal the tensions at play between various factions and serve as a forum for ongoing debates about what was at stake in local communities: chiefly, the state of one’s soul and the torture and murder of innocents.
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Rutkowski, Paweł. "Animal Transformation in Early Modern English Witchcraft Pamphlets." Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies, no. 28/1 (September 20, 2019): 21–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.7311/0860-5734.28.1.02.
Animal metamorphosis was a traditional component of witchcraft beliefs during the European early modern witch-hunts, during which it was taken for granted that witches could and did turn into animals regularly in order to easier do evil. It must be noted, however, that the witch-turned-animal motif was much less common in England, where witches did possess the shape-shifting abilities but relatively rarely used them. A likely reason for the difference, explored in the present paper, was the specifically English belief that most witches were accompanied and served by familiar spirits, petty demons that customarily assumed the shape of animals. It seems that the ubiquity of such demonic shape-shifters effectively satisfied the demand for magical transformations in the English witchcraft lore.
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Drucker-Brown, Susan. "Mamprusi witchcraft, subversion and changing gender relations." Africa 63, no. 4 (October 1993): 531–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1161005.
AbstractIn the pre-colonial Mamprusi kingdom female witches were either executed after sentencing in the king's court, or segregated in a special section of a major market town where they received medicine to neutralise their witchcraft. This treatment of witches is a manifestation of the centralising process at work in the kingdom, and also exemplifies the division of ritual labour characteristic of the polity. Recent changes in the constitution of the witches' village have been accompanied by new Mamprusi conceptions of witchcraft, drawing on a long-standing belief in the power of women to subvert the social order. Radical changes in national political and economic conditions, and local changes in the division of labour, are threatening the idealised norms of Mamprusi gender relations. Mamprusi witch-hunting emerges as an attempt to control women, who are perceived as a source of these wider disorders.
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Igwe, Leo. "Media and Witchcraft Accusation in Northern Ghana." Secular Studies 1, no. 2 (October 10, 2019): 186–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00102001.
Abstract There has been a growing visibility of witchcraft beliefs in the African media. The dominant paradigm in the academic literature on witchcraft is that the media reinforce witchcraft beliefs by disseminating information and ideas that are related to witchcraft accusations and witch hunting. However, a careful examination shows that this is not always the case because the media serve other counter purposes. Using ethnographic data from the Dagomba area in Northern Ghana and the concept of forum shopping, this paper explores how accused persons in the Dagomba communities utilize the limited media coverage to enhance their responses to witchcraft accusations. Apart from disseminating information regarding the activities of assumed witches, the media publicize perspectives that reject witchcraft notions.
In late summer 2018, beauty chain Sephora announced the release of a “Starter Witch Kit” in collaboration with fragrance company Pinrose. By September, Sephora announced it was cancelling the product after receiving extensive criticism on social media, particularly from Modern Witches. This article examines the uproar surrounding Sephora’s Starter Witch Kit as it played out on Twitter. The debate on Twitter included Witches protesting the appropriation and commodification of their sacred traditions, as well as outsiders who questioned the right of Witches to complain about spiritual theft. This Twitter debate was an opportunity for Modern Witches to substantiate and legitimize their identities as Witches. Witches distinguished their identities as “authentic” by mocking certain products and consumers, and demarcated practices/traditions as distinctive of Witchcraft by calling them sacred. By accusing Sephora of spiritual theft, Witches also largely elided their own engagement with appropriation from religious traditions.
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Solomon, Rukundo. "WITCH-KILLINGS AND THE LAW IN UGANDA." Journal of Law and Religion 35, no. 2 (July 15, 2020): 270–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2020.25.
AbstractPeople believed to be witches have been killed in many parts of Africa since precolonial times. Belief in witchcraft persists today among many people, occasionally resulting in the killing of the suspected witch. The killer views witchcraft as an attack similar in nature to the use of physical force and therefore kills the witch in an attempt to end the perceived attack. As it stands today, the law in Uganda fails to strike a balance between the rights of the deceased victim violated through murder and those of the accused who honestly believes that he or she or a loved one was a victim of witchcraft. This article argues that the defenses that are currently available—mistake of fact, self-defense, insanity, and provocation by witchcraft—are insufficient, as they fail to strike that delicate balance. A more pragmatic approach to the issue of witch-killing, one that deals with the elimination of belief in witchcraft, is necessary.
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Staab, Professof Dr Franz. "Witches and Belief in Witchcraft." Philosophy and History 22, no. 2 (1989): 184–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philhist1989222105.
ALBRIGHT, DANIEL. "The witches and the witch: Verdi's Macbeth." Cambridge Opera Journal 17, no. 3 (November 2005): 225–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586706002059.
The witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth equivocate between the demons of random malevolence and ordinary (if exceptionally nasty) old women; and both King James I, whose book on witchcraft may have influenced Shakespeare, and A. W. Schlegel, whose essay on Macbeth certainly influenced Verdi, also stress this ambiguity. In his treatment of Lady Macbeth, Verdi uses certain musical patterns associated with the witches; and like the witches, who sound sometimes tame and frivolous, sometimes like incarnations of supernatural evil, Lady Macbeth hovers insecurely between roles: she is a hybrid of ambitious wife and agent of hell.
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Crampton, Alexandra. "No Peace in the House: Witchcraft Accusations as an “Old Woman’s Problem” in Ghana." Anthropology & Aging 34, no. 2 (September 1, 2013): 199–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/aa.2013.20.
In Ghana, older women may be marginalized, abused, and even killed as witches. Media accounts imply this is common practice, mainly through stories of “witches camps” to which the accused may flee. Anthropological literature on aging and on witchcraft, however, suggests that this focus exaggerates and misinterprets the problem. This article presents a literature review and exploratory data on elder advocacy and rights intervention on behalf of accused witches in Ghana to help answer the question of how witchcraft accusations become an older woman’s problem in the context of aging and elder advocacy work. The ineffectiveness of rights based and formal intervention through sponsored education programs and development projects is contrasted with the benefit of informal conflict resolution by family and staff of advocacy organizations. Data are based on ethnographic research in Ghana on a rights based program addressing witchcraft accusations by a national elder advocacy organization and on rights based intervention in three witches camps.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Witches and witchcraft":
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Smith, Zena Diane. "Modern witchcraft in suburban Australia: how and what witches learn." Thesis, Curtin University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/383.
Existing anthropological research and discussion related to contemporary Wiccan and Witchcraft practice is growing and indeed has been explored by anthropologists and other writers from the northern and southern hemispheres. However, there has been limited discourse on how and what Western Australian Wiccans and Witches learn. This ethnographic research fills that gap by exploring, in two separate sections, how Wiccans and Witches have developed relevant skills in a social learning structure and what ritual practice they have learnt as a result. The thesis proposes that the current theories of learning and ritual fail to adequately describe the social processes and outcomes observed.In the first section, focusing on how the participants learn, I argue that cognitive, behavioural and humanist learning theories as well as the most relevant social learning theory, Communities of Practice, fail to explain adequately the holistic learning processes with which the Wiccans and Witches are engaged. Instead I propose a new and complementary theory of learning that I identify as 'Whole Person’ theory that more effectively describes the holistic and intuitive nature of learning the research participants undertook.In the second section I go further to show that the existing theories of ritual fail to explore and consider ritual as a product or outcome of learning and instead focus heavily on ritual either as a process contributing to and reflecting the social order in which it takes place or they describe the structure of ritual. This research shows that ritual can be both a process of a social group as well as a product and an end result of learning and social interaction. The ethnographic materials presented extend our understanding of both learning and ritual.
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Chaemsaithong, Krisda. "Linguistic and stylistic constructions of witchcraft and witches : a case of witchcraft pamphlets in Early Modern England /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9413.
McGowan, Jennifer A. "Reading witches, reading women : late Tudor and early Stuart texts." Thesis, Bangor University, 2001. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/reading-witches-reading-women--late-tudor-and-early-stuart-texts(95b04f7a-96ca-48a2-a038-fb2671ab2476).html.
The introduction discusses the problematics involved in developing a feminist theory of late Renaissance and early modem witchcraft. It includes an overview of both Renaissance feminist theory and witchcraft studies, and posits that the witch is a hybrid, multivalent figure. Chapter one examines contemporary sources for portrayals of witches. The second chapter analyses the roles of witches, hags, and viragos in The Facrie Queene. Throughout the work their femininity is problematised, its meaning displaced onto horrific figures or fragmented into "good" and "bad" women. Both inspire dis-ease. Lyly's Endimion introduces a witch in the Thessalian tradition and women whose transgressions lie in daring to act and speak. Chapter three expands the definition of witch to other unruly women, including the shrew and the power-wielding woman; it also proves that Dipsas' power is the strongest in the play. Chapter four analyses the way in which the definition of witcheraft can be imposed on a woman by exterior societal forces, with reference to The Witch of Edmonton. Also discussed are the role of cursing and the problematics of female sexuality. Chapters five through eight discuss Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Joan of Arc is fragmented and reflects the varying views about her, and again shows how one woman may be variously defined. With Joan's death, Margaret of Anjou becomes the virile woman in the tetralogy. She and other women who share her verbal potency are condemned not only by the men in the plays but also by critics who erroneously take the negative view as definitive. Macbeth concerns itself with exploration of gender, androgyny, power (occult and otherwise) and its betrayal. Chapter eight outlines how the women in other Shakespearean plays do not achieve dramatic impact as witches because they are robbed of primary agency in the plays. Chapter nine demonstrates how Middleton distances his Heccat and proves that the real witches and villains lie in the structure of the patriarchy of The Witch. Lyly combines cunning woman with Sibyl in Mother Bombie; wit defines wisdom. Chapter eleven presents The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon, an anomaly in that the witchfigure and unruly characters of both sexes are not condemned and have happy resolutions. The conclusion summarises briefly and outlines areas of further study. Appendix A is a table; Appendix B outlines the role of cursing as gendered speech in Shakespeare's first tetralogy.
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Tyrrell, Marc W. D. (Marc Wyly Douglas) Carleton University Dissertation Canadian Studies. "Strands of moonlight; an examination of the institutionalization process amongst Neo-Pagan Witches in Ottawa." Ottawa, 1992.
Gibson, Marion Heather. "Taken as read? : A study of the literary, historical and legal aspects of English witchcraft pamphlets 1566-1621." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.361338.
Goff, Jennifer. "The Serpent in the Garden: How early-modern writers and artists depicted devils and witches." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396523520.
Coleman, Alex. "Foul Witches and Feminine Power: Gendered Representations of Witchcraft in the Works of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries." Ohio Dominican University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=odu1562624942402741.
Shufelt, Catherine Armetta. ""Something wicked this way comes" constructing the witch in contemporary American popular culture /." Bowling Green, Ohio : Bowling Green State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1194289705.
In order to reconcile the absence of sexually deviant witch figures (succubae, demonic women, etc.) within the formation of American national literature in the nineteenth century with the fantastic elements found in European variations on the gothic, my thesis aims to demonstrate transatlantic variants of erotic signifiers attached to witch figures in nineteenth-century gothic fiction and mediums across national traditions. I will begin by tracing the transatlantic and historical impact of Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum—an early modern handbook of sorts used widely in witchcraft inquisitions—on Early American witch trials, specifically where its influence deviates from a sexualized conception of the witch and where a different prosopography of the historical witch emerges. Next, I will assess a short sample of nineteenth-century American pulp fiction to demonstrate the historical impact of America’s erotically decoded witch type on fictionalized versions or caricatures of the witch. In doing so I hope to create a reading that informs a more transatlantically complex representation of The Scarlet Letter. Finally, in order to underscore the significance of these national and historical departures of The Scarlet Letter as a gothic novel, I will contrast Hawthorne’s novel with a selective reading of nineteenth-century gothic texts from England and France that employ the witch or demonic feminine motif in an erotically codified and fantastic setting, namely using Old World magic and history that draws from French and English traditions.To demonstrate the significance of erotically coded witches in the British tradition, I will briefly examine Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel” as a gothic text that relies heavily on the erotic affect encoded in the figure of Geraldine. I will also touch on Prosper Mérimée’s “La Vénus d’Ille” and Théophile Gautier’s “La Morte Amoreuse,” two remarkable short stories that highlight the sublime terror of sexually deviant, occult female figures. Through such a collection of readings of witches and erotic, occult women I hope to amplify a more latent theme underlying The Scarlet Letter and America’s conflicted relationship with the gothic tradition: namely its crucial lack of erotic enchantment as a channel for the experience of gothic affect, the fantastic, and even sublime terror.
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Stamatopoulos, Konstantinos [Verfasser], Heinz-Günther [Akademischer Betreuer] Nesselrath, Stephen [Gutachter] Harrison, and Ulrike [Gutachter] Egelhaaf-Gaiser. "Embracing the Occult: Magic, Witchcraft, and Witches in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses / Konstantinos Stamatopoulos ; Gutachter: Stephen Harrison, Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser ; Betreuer: Heinz-Günther Nesselrath." Göttingen : Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1172970718/34.
Book chapters on the topic "Witches and witchcraft":
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Macdonald, Helen. "Crafting witches." In Witchcraft Accusations from Central India, 82–122. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021.: Routledge India, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003111252-5.
Macdonald, Helen. "Policing witches." In Witchcraft Accusations from Central India, 155–80. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021.: Routledge India, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003111252-7.
Mencej, Mirjam. "Social Witchcraft: Village Witches." In Styrian Witches in European Perspective, 313–48. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37250-5_7.
Mencej, Mirjam. "Contemporary European Witchcraft." In Styrian Witches in European Perspective, 23–33. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37250-5_2.
Dudley, Margaret, and Julian Goodare. "Outside In or Inside Out: Sleep Paralysis and Scottish Witchcraft." In Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, 121–39. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137355942_8.
Gaskill, Malcolm. "Witches and Witnesses in Old and New England." In Languages of Witchcraft, 55–80. London: Macmillan Education UK, 2001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98529-8_4.
Mencej, Mirjam. "Witchcraft in the Region under Research." In Styrian Witches in European Perspective, 35–109. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37250-5_3.
