[csaa-forum] CFP: “You can’t burn us all”: Witches, Media, and the Magic of Resistance

Mon Mar 17 09:49:07 ACST 2025

“You can’t burn us all”: Witches, Media, and the Magic of Resistance

Edited volume editor: Laura Vermeeren l.vermeeren at uva.nl<mailto: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<mailto: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. We look forward to receiving your submissions!

  Associate Professor Holly Randell-Moon

School of Indigenous Australian Studies

Faculty of Arts and Education

Charles Sturt University

Wiradyuri
Locked Bag 49
Dubbo NSW 2830
Australia

https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/persons/holly-randell-moon

 I acknowledge the sovereignty of Wiradyuri, Ngunawal, Gundungurra and Birpai peoples

of Australia who are the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which CSU’s campuses are situated. I pay my respects to all First Nations Elders and I honour them for maintaining the cultural and intellectual foundations that ensure these traditions continue in perpetuity.

"You don't have to be great to be successful. Look at Phil Collins." - Noel Gallagher

Security, Race, Biopower<https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-55408-6>

Somatechnics: Journal of Bodies - Technology - Power<https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/soma>

  *   Randell-Moon, H. (2025). 'So, are you Indigenous?’ Settler responsibilities when teaching Indigenous Australian Studies. In B. Lythberg, C. Woods & S. Nemec (eds.), Settler Responsibility for Decolonisation: Stories from the Field<https://www.routledge.com/Settler-Responsibility-for-Decolonisation-Stories-from-the-Field/Lythberg-Woods-Nemec/p/book/9781032736631#:~:text=Drawing%20from%20experiences%20in%20the,reconcile%20their%20place%20in%20colonialism.>. Routledge.

  *
Randell-Moon, H. (2024). Seeing like a settler: place-making, settler heritage, and tourism in Dubbo, Australia. Tourism GeoGraphies, 26(6), 993–1011. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2380321

[cid:a63e2331-8b43-4741-8ddb-f34fc27c46e3]<https://csaa.asn.au/csaa-conference-2025/>

[Charles Sturt]<https://www.csu.edu.au>

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