Witchcraft - Detailseite

To this day, the so-called Salem village witchcraft crisis (1692-93) holds cultural significance in the U.S. and has inspired several cultural productions: from several historical treatises based on original court case files, to literary texts, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables (1851) to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953) and Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1986), to the very recent TV series Salem (2014-2017). The longevity of this event is produced through its constant retelling. The different voices and media through which this retelling has occurred have enabled interesting synergies between mythology, occultism, and historical fact, provided information on how the histories of religion, settler colonialism, and slavery intersect, and have illuminated queerness’s ever-present potential to challenge and threaten the dominant order.

In this class, we will take the Salem village witchcraft crisis as a starting point to think about the significance of what we will call “witchcraft” in American culture. The critical interrogation of spatial and temporal configurations that often constitute binary oppositions and are laden with moral significance, such as “daytime” vs. “nighttime,” or “village” vs. “woods,” frame our contextualization of witchcraft in US American culture. Though starting at the time of the early settlements (mid-17^th century), this class will highlight selected moments of its emergence throughout American history up until the 21^st century.

Additional information:

• All secondary reading material will be provided through Moodle
• Updates on texts (i.e. novels) to be purchased will be given closer to the beginning of class or during the first session.