HNAR-328: Witch Lit

Warty-nosed hags, seductresses, demon queens, teen heroes, Instagram celebrities? This class examines literature's cultural imagination of witches connected with (falsely) accused or practicing witches throughout history. Real, imagined, Othered, and murdered, the witch is a multiform phantasm with one constancy over thousands of years: the witch has power. This course studies classical representations of witchy women-- Circe and Medea, Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth-and witch history: American and European witches and witch hunting, witches of the Caribbean and African diaspora, Victorian gothic romances, and 20th/21st century witches in literature, film, television, and social media.