By Jamie Stephenson
On Wednesday 30th October 2024 York St John University’s ‘Interdisciplinary Witches’ and ‘Hauntology and Spectrality’ research groups presented their first combined event, timed perfectly for the Halloween season. The joint symposium, organised by Dr Zoë Enstone and Dr Sharon Jagger, and titled “‘Something wicked this way comes’?”, promised to explore a plethora of cross-scholarly themes including:
- Cultural iterations of the witch, the ghost or the spectral in art, media, literature, fashion
- Sociological/political explorations of the witch; feminist retellings and activism
- The religious and spiritual witch; beliefs, practices, inheritances
- The historical witch and the contestations around femicide, lineage, capitalist enclosures
- The witch as a symbol for arcane or alternative ways of knowing
- The witch as a site of epistemic anxiety
- Witch futures; digital witch and witch hunts, speculations, and witchy utopias and dystopias.
The event was structured into two sections: Panel 1 – Media and the Hauntological (grouping together Dr Lauren Stephenson and I), and Panel 2 – the Interdisciplinary Witch (consisting of Dr Sarah O’Brien; Dr Kiran Tanna; PhD researcher, Niamh Drain; and Dr Alex Wylie).
After a brief welcome and introduction from Dr Enstone (who kindly provided a cauldron full of spooky sweets for attendee sustenance), Dr Lauren Stephenson kicked off proceedings in earnest with a presentation entitled, ‘They’re Here: The Fraternity-Cult in Sophia Takal’s Black Christmas (2019)’. Lauren’s excellent talk focussed on Takal’s recent feminist re-imagining of the original Black Christmas (1974) slasher—perhaps the first ‘on-campus’ horror film—in conjunction with a critique of the first Trump administration’s May 2020 amendment to (and weakening of) the U.S.’s Title IX policy (which historically provided protection and advocation for survivors of sexual harassment and on-campus assault). Dr Stephenson drew interesting parallels between fraternity cults, inherited male privilege, and an amplifying of cultural sorority/ies as response to toxic masculinity. Following Lauren, I presented a paper themed around ‘hauntology’ and the music of Scottish electronica duo, Boards of Canada, as a vehicle for discussing ghostly motifs in relation to nostalgia capitalism, sound recording technology, and late modernity. The first panel was rounded out by some interesting questions from the audience.
Following a short break, the symposium reconvened for the second and final panel of the afternoon. First up were Drs Sarah O’Brien and Kiran Tanna, with an interactive talk titled ‘Prophecies and Propaganda: An Introduction to Mother Shipton, Apocalyptic Podcasts and Cursed Maps’. Sarah and Kiran’s dynamic ‘tag-team’ presentation addressed contemporary beliefs about witchcraft and its exploitation by online media propagandists. In a wide-ranging talk, the pair took in the history of conspiracy theories, a timeline of Mother Shipton’s existence (and subsequent lore), and an online participatory element that saw audience members scanning a QR code in order to contribute to Sarah and Kiran’s ongoing research.
Next was postgraduate researcher Niamh Drain, with a presentation entitled, ‘A Word from the Witch…’. Niamh showcased her PhD research thus far: a series of responses from interviewees concerning female-centered earth-based practices/rituals/praxes. One of the most interesting takeaways from Niamh’s research for me was the number of contemporary practitioners who don’t feel part of an historico-cultural witch lineage. Although aware of events such as the 17th Century witch trials, Niamh’s subjects didn’t necessarily sense any intrinsic connection to this prior heritage. Rather, recurrent motifs throughout the interview responses included sisterhood, nurturing, and self-love; perhaps in a conscious effort to transgress the patriarchal limitations and trauma association inhered within negative connotations of “witch”. Or what Celeste Larsen calls the “Witch Wound” (Heal the Witch Wound, 2023).
The theme of reclaiming power, catalysed by Lauren’s talk, and ran through many of the afternoon’s presentations, resounded again in Dr Alex Wylie’s poetry, which closed out the symposium. Alex provided a brief reading from a work-in-progress, a longform poem provisionally titled, The Northern Antimasque. He delivered several impassioned extracts from the work, each passage full of beautifully lyrical imagery, sewing together the historical injustices of the Pendle witches, feminine identity, and northern history, while also raising pertinent questions such as who “knowledge” belongs to, and where it comes from. The Northern Antimasque promises to be a very powerful work; in a manner, perhaps a Lancastrian response to Polly Jean Harvey’s West Country magical realist verse novel, Orlam (2022).
On reflection, as both a participant and a member of the audience, I can honestly say that “‘Something wicked this way comes’?” was an extremely engaging event. It was so nice to see these topics getting some much-deserved attention at YSJ as well as seeing so many people in attendance. Thank you again to Zoë and Sharon for organising the event and to all the other contributors – your papers really spoke to the diversity and quality of research (and creative practice) taking place in these areas at YSJ. I, for one, am really looking forward to the next steps for the ‘Interdisciplinary Witches’ and ‘Hauntology and Spectrality’ research groups.
