Witchcraft

Gendered Perspectives

Jennie Woodard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040388846
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Women in History
• Index: Social Sciences

From fairy tales and fiction to Tiktok, the specter of the witch has cast a long shadow over women and popular culture. Witchcraft: Gendered Perspectives traces the history of and evolution of the term "witch" across six centuries.

Tracing the history of witchcraft from the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum to its contemporary representation and reclamation, this volume takes a gendered and intersectional approach to the cultural and historical shifts which have both demonized and democratized the witch online and in public discourse. Amongst these are:

• The witch trials in Scotland, England and America
• Literary and screen re-imaginings of the witch
• The rise of Wicca as an alternative religion.

Witchcraft: Gendered Perspectives is an invaluable resource for graduate and undergraduate students across gender studies, queer history, religious studies, media studies and European and North American history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 “The Wickedness of Woman”: The Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Hammer of Witches”
• 2 “Something Wicked This Way Comes”: The Witchhunts of Scotland, England and Salem
• 3 “Garmented in Light”: Reimaginings of the Witch Through Nineteenth-Century Poetry
• 4 “An Ye Harm None”: The Rise of Wicca in the Twentieth Century
• 5 “Normal is Not Necessarily a Virtue”: TV and Movie Witches of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
• 6 “The Power to Write Your Own Story”: The Witch as Reclamation in the Twenty-First Century
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index