This year’s symposium brought together two panels of speakers:
Panel 1 – Media and the Hauntological
Dr Lauren Stephenson
In May of 2020, the Trump administration amended the U.S.’s Title IX. Originally a single sentence ruling that aimed to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex in their pursuit of education, Trump’s amended policy resulted in a document of over 2000 pages; a document that critics claimed was deliberately inaccessible and obfuscatory. Title IX policy has historically provided protection and advocation for survivors of sexual harassment and assault on-campus, and previous administrative interpretations have outlined U.S. universities’ responsibilities in ensuring that transparent and fair complaints and reporting procedures are in place for students and staff. The new Trump-led iteration of Title IX not only produced an impenetrable, contradictory, and needlessly protracted document, but also insisted on narrowing the parameters of what was recognised as sexual misconduct under Title IX protections. In short, Trump’s new ruling made reporting on-campus assault and harassment a much more difficult and arduous process. However, this new development did not create unsafe campus spaces for marginalised students (see the much-publicised Brock Turner case of 2016); it simply worked to maintain them. Considering Sophia Takal’s 2019 release Black Christmas, this paper aims to examine the way campus-based horror intersects with and reflects upon the position and privilege of the fraternity and fraternity culture in a Title IX context, by framing the fraternity as a space upheld by ancient and arcane ritual. Moreover, this chapter suggests that Takal’s film, and its divided reception as a woman-helmed re-interpretation of the canonical 1974 slasher, advocates for the formation of sisterhoods (perhaps even covens?) as crucial in challenging toxic masculinity on campus, and off.
Lauren Stephenson was appointed Lecturer in Film Studies at York St. John in January 2019, after three years with the university as a Visiting Lecturer in Film and Media studies. Her main area of interest is the Horror film. She completed her PhD in June 2018, and her thesis explored the British ‘Hoodie horror’ film cycle and its treatment of gender and class. Her recent research includes work on found footage folk horror and First Ladies in American disaster cinema. She is the co-founder of the Cinema and Social Justice project at York St. John University, and executive producer of the short film Cost of Living (2022).
Dr Jamie Stephenson – Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute (LAHRI) University of Leeds, England, UK. https://lahri.leeds.ac.uk/profiles/jamie-stephenson/
Originating in a series of 1993 lectures by French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, the neologism ‘hauntology’ is both portmanteau (‘haunt’, ‘-ology’) and near-homophone to the French pronunciation of ‘ontology’ (the study of being). Mark Fisher (2006) notes that this Derridian pun only reaches its full potential in spoken French, thus hauntology already possesses an ‘intrinsically sonic dimension’. Despite anterior correlates—e.g., hip-hop, dub, psychedelia—‘sonic’ hauntology arguably finds its first sonorous counterpart in Music Has the Right to Children (1998), the debut album by Scottish electronica duo, Boards of Canada.
Paraphrasing Derrida (1994), all eras have their ‘hauntological’ media, their ghosts— and for a ghost to exist there must be a ‘body’ to haunt. One consequence of a trajectory of recording technology might be the subsequent stockpiling of such ‘bodies’ (e.g., physical media) and their cataloguing of history as ‘library’. The accumulation of such a library of socio-cultural artifacts (e.g., vinyl) entails that history becomes ‘diggable’: an excavation and subsequent expression of this previously repressed ‘memory’. With this in mind, my paper explores the artistic practices of Boards of Canada as part of the ‘analogue-to-digital transfer generation’ (Young, 2005), sounding machinic ghosts via a technological metaphysics of presence and absence.
My research explores methods for rethinking classic metaphysical inquiry (questions pertaining to what reality consists of, and how this can best be conceptualised), via an aesthetics of sound, in a manner that disrupts Western philosophy’s anthropocentrism (and its facilitative grammar of visualism), in pursuit of ontological democracy. In particular, I am interested in exploring ontology conceived of as if it were sonic, rather than, as I claim is commonplace in the history of Western thinking, metaphorised as visual.
Panel 2 – The Interdisciplinary Witch
Dr Kiran Tana and Dr Sarah O’Brien
Prophecies and Propaganda: An Introduction to Mother Shipton, Apocalyptic Podcasts and Cursed Maps
This interactive presentation demonstrates our emerging creative practice, which addresses contemporary beliefs about witchcraft and its exploitation by propagandists. We begin by drawing parallels between contemporary folklore and the historical figure Mother Shipton, a 16th Century witch from Knaresborough. Shipton’s prophecies were used as propaganda during the English Civil War – a process facilitated by relatively new technologies like the printing press. Likewise, stories concerning witches and prophecies have spread in online media and have since been adopted by conspiracists – for example, the paranormal podcasting scene has become increasingly interested in apocalyptic visions concerning satanic elites. This comparison helps us to examine the way emergent communications technologies help various communities to express anxieties about witchcraft, and how these anxieties can mutate into dangerous propaganda. Combining these ideas with our existing research into gothic storytelling and the found media trope, we propose some strategies that may help creators to relativise representations of the witch and, therefore, resist reductive narratives about witchcraft.
We approach this research as scholars who are interested in gothic media and the spread of stories online; also, as theatre practitioners whose work attempts to activate a critical audience. In addition, Kiran is a practicing witch whose magic already operates at the intersection of conspiracy theory culture and occultism. We are therefore able explore the themes of our enquiry from autoethnographic perspectives, which should, in turn, help to relativise our practice research.
Niamh Drain – PhD researcher: ‘A Word from the Witch…’
The story of the witch is not a new one, she continues to haunt history and the minds of men: she is horrifying yet fascinating, still for the women (and men) who follow the path of the witch, she is the ultimate figure of empowerment, freedom and femininity. For women who practice witchcraft or other female-centred earth spiritualities, what do these simple, yet loaded words – femininity and empowerment – mean and how do they weave in and infuse their ‘witch’ identities? I take on the challenge and privilege of exploring the intricacies of what women are practicing and the rituals they observe, and the connection these acts have with their interpretation of ‘femininity’. On a deeper, more personal level, I am reclaiming the witch, in every aspect of her being: language, her position in history, continued appropriation and transforming her standing as simply, a Woman In Total Control of Herself with the help and wisdom of women who follow the path. In this brief moment, I will share some insight into my research, through snippets from my interviews, opening your minds to what the real witches are saying.
Dr Alex Wylie
Alex Wylie is the author of two collections of poetry, Secular Games (2018) and Krishna’s Anarchy (2023). He will be reading from a work in progress, a book-length poem provisionally entitled The Northern Antimasque, a narrative/lyric sequence which incorporates the Pendle witches, Northern-Englishness, historical injustice, identity, history, and power.