SpellboundFall24: August 2024

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Witches in Popular Media

TV Shows with Witches:

Bewitched, 1964

Sabrina, 1996

Charmed 1998

Charmed, 2004

Once Upon a Time, 2011

Witches of East End, 2013

American Horror Story: Coven, 2013

Salem, 2014

The Magicians, 2015

The Worst Witch, 2017

Midnight, Texas, 2017

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 2018

A Discovery of Witches, 2018

Motherland: Fort Salem, 2020

Witchy Films:

Snow White, 1937

The Wizard of Oz, 1939

Suspiria, 1977; or remake in 2018

The Witches of Eastwick, 1987

Teen Witch, 1989

The Witches, 1990

Hocus Pocus, 1993

Sabrina, The Teen Witch, 1996

The Crucible, 1996

The Craft, 1996

The Crucible, 1996

Halloweentown, 1998

Practical Magic, 1998

Teen Witch, 1998

The Blair Witch Project, 1999

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 2001

Bewitched, 2005

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 2005

Season of the Witch, 2011

Lords of Salem, 2012

Beautiful Creatures, 2013

Maleficent, 2014

Into the Woods, 2014

The Witch, 2016

The Love Witch, 2016

Social Media: TikTok (WitchTok), Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook

Spectral Evidence

“Spectral evidence refers to a witness testimony that the accused person’s spirit or spectral shape appeared to them witness in a dream at the time the accused person’s physical body was at another location. It was accepted in the courts during the Salem Witch Trials. The evidence was accepted on the basis that the devil and his minions were powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters, to pure, religious people in order to lead them astray. In spectral evidence, the admission of victims’ conjectures is governed only by the limits of their fears and imaginations. Specters could be seen by those tormented but be invisible to others.

Spectral evidence was testimony in which witnesses claimed that the accused appeared to them and did them harm in a dream or a vision. Contemporary witch lore held that witches could project themselves spiritually, either directly or with the aid of Satan, in order to harm their victims from afar.

Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions. Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The alleged victims would claim to have been tormented by specters invisible to others. This was taken as evidence that the accused witches, and or devils or demons that assumed appearance, were actively tormenting the victims. This testimony was virtually impossible to refute.

What Is Othering?

The social psychology concept of othering refers to the process of excluding and marginalizing a person because of their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, or another demographic identifier. Rather than participating in a dialectic about a person’s individuality and innate dignity as a human being, otherization leads people to make premature judgments about another person’s character and personality.

Occasionally, an even more insidious and disturbing process of dehumanization can occur. This happens when a group takes the concept of othering so far they feel entitled to act unethically and maybe even cruelly toward an entire group of people on the basis of false or generalized pretenses.

Why Is Othering a Problem?

Othering allows a dominant group to justify mistreating a marginalized group, even to the point of stripping them of basic human rights. As soon as enough people believe a hierarchy exists between their group and another one, the dominant group becomes more likely to act in a dehumanizing manner toward the minority one.

3 Signs of Othering

Othering is a process you might not even realize you’re engaged in at first. Keep an eye out for these three signs to see if you might be unconsciously engaging in this practice of social exclusion and marginalization:

1. Avoiding interactions: Suppose you meet someone for the first time and immediately take a dislike to them before you even get a chance to substantively speak to each other. From that point forward, you try to avoid the person whenever you see them again. It’s likely you’ve cast them as “the other” in this scenario.
2. Feeling distrust: Imagine your car breaks down by the side of the road and a person who differs from you in some way pulls over to help you. You feel uneasy about them, so you thank them for their concern, say you’re fine, and then encourage them to move along. Now imagine a person who looks similar to you comes along and you gladly accept their help. The first person belonged to a different identity group than you (or an out-group) and the second possessed all the same external attributes as you do (as part of the same in-group). If you tend to trust or distrust individual human beings based on the metrics in this example, it’s quite possible you’re engaged in othering.
3. Making generalized statements: Perhaps you often speak in broad strokes, making expansive and negative categorizations about entire swaths of people, either in earnest or for comedic effect. Consider asking yourself why you think this is an acceptable and accurate subject of conversation. Alternatively, maybe you’re a member of the middle class and associate exclusively with people from the same income bracket in which you reside, even though you never outwardly denigrate people of the lower classes. In either of these cases, you might be valuing group identities over individual personalities.

How to Combat Othering

Combating false and harmful social constructions is paramount to creating a more just, inclusive, and equitable society. Remember these words of advice when doing your part to fight against othering:

Be aware of unconscious bias. Your own social identity and conditioning can lead you to participate in the process of othering without even realizing it. Unconscious bias refers to the potentiality you might marginalize people of a different social group despite holding very different and much more inclusive values on a conscious level. Evaluate your personal relationships and your daily interactions with strangers to see if you might be doing so.
Educate yourself. Read about the plight of marginalized social groups, as well as about their most joyful moments and accomplishments. Educate yourself about how othering has played out negatively throughout history. As you learn about human beings of all different groups, seek out the similarities between groups at the same time you celebrate some of the differences, too.
Meet new people. Dedicate yourself to bridging the gap between your own perceived in-group and various so-called out-groups. This sort of intergroup mingling will quickly reveal the commonalities you share with people of all different backgrounds. When you stop falling back on stereotypes and harmful social constructs, you open yourself up to the opportunity of meeting a wide plethora of new friends.
View people as individuals. While it’s sometimes important to remember the trials of certain groups of people or celebrate what makes them unique, remember the importance of viewing everyone you meet as a unique individual with their own story. To judge them prematurely because of the group they’re from is the very definition of prejudice and othering.

Occult

Supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena; matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them; a term that was originally used in Latin to designate the hidden or unseen properties of things and that, since the 16th century, has also been used to characterize religious traditions that include belief in unseen forces or that otherwise behave in a secretive or mysterious manner.

Divination

the practice of attempting to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means.

Augury

Prophecy, predicting the future by interpreting signs and omens. “Reading omens from weather patterns, the flight of birds, the entrails of sacrificed animals “ and thousands of other “omens”

Omen

anything perceived or happening that is believed to portend a good or evil event or circumstance in the future; a portent. An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages from the gods.

Animism

Animism is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words—as animated and alive.

the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena;

the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe.

belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests.

The term animism denotes not a single creed or doctrine but a view of the world consistent with a certain range of religious beliefs and practices, many of which may survive in more complex and hierarchical religions. Modern scholarship’s concern with animism is coeval with the problem of rational or scientific understanding of religion itself. After the age of exploration, Europe’s best information on the newly discovered peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania often came from Christian missionaries. While generally unsympathetic to what was regarded as “primitive superstition,” some missionaries in the 19th century developed a scholarly interest in beliefs that seemed to represent an early type of religious creed, inferior but ancestral to their own.

Totem

A totem is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.

a natural object or animal that is believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and that is adopted by it as an emblem.

A totem could be a grizzly bear, oak tree, catfish, or just about any other living thing. Like a flag, a totem means a lot to the people it represents

Shaman and Shamanism

a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically, such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practice divination and healing.

A shaman is therefore a specific type of healer who uses an alternate state of consciousness to enter the invisible world, which is made up of all unseen ...

Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance.

Amulets

amulet, also called Talisman, an object, either natural or man-made, believed to be endowed with special powers to protect or bring good ...

An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's Natural History describes as "an object that protects a person from trouble"

Idolatry

The religious worship of idols

Stoicheosis

The worship of statues.

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Spellbound: Witches, Witchcraft, and Witch Hunts

HCOL 41543-660

Fall 2024

Sadler 108

Wednesday, 2:00 PM – 4:40 PM

Education is not learning the facts, but training the mind to think.

—Albert Einstein

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

—Ben Franklin

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who cant’ read.

—Mark Twain

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

--Joseph Addison

Dan Williams, PhD

Director of TCU Press and TCU Honors Professor of Humanities

Office[s]: TCU Press (3000 Sandage), Sadler 427

Office Hours: Friday, 8 AM- 10:00 AM, and by appointment (in person or virtual)

d.e.williams@tcu.edu

817-257-5907 office

Emails are usually the best way to reach me, and all emails from students are usually answered the same day. For appointments, please email before our meeting to be sure where I will be.

Final Exam: Our final “exam” will take place on December 9 from 2 PM to 4:30 PM.

I will email you this syllabus before our first meeting and as well upload it and other courses materials to our D2L site. I will also post grading points on D2L.

Student resources, policies, and information can be located at: https://cte.tcu.edu/tcu-syllabus-policies/

Course Description:

This colloquium will explore the cultural phenomena of witches, witchcraft, and witch hunts with a special focus on the 1692 Salem witch hysteria. Confused references to witch hunts are now commonplace, and this Honors colloquium will examine how such references evolved from the printed histories of historical events.

Belief in witchcraft and magic was widespread for centuries and in many ways supplemented standard religious beliefs. Today witchcraft is more prevalent than ever before. Wicca, part of the neo-pagan movement, is a fast-growing belief system that has countless followers worldwide, and Salem—once a site of tragedy—is now known as the Home of Halloween and celebrates Haunted Happenings, a month-long celebration, that culminates a witch parade viewed by thousands.

Far from being hunted down and eradicated, witches and witchcraft are now mainstream and marketable. Tragically, however, in certain parts of the world suspected witches are still being hunted down, persecuted, and even murdered.

Reading both primary and secondary sources (both print and digital), this colloquium will discuss historical beliefs in witchcraft and, as a case study, closely consider the infamous—yet baffling—events in Salem, where nineteen people were executed, another tortured to death, and several more died in prison. Since 1692, countless writers have offered interpretations, yet there is no single explanation to understand why, in a matter of months, several hundred people were accused of witchcraft in such a small geographic area.

Witchcraft is also a commercially successful subject in numerous popular media, such as fiction (both adult and children’s books), television, film, and now social media, and this colloquium will also study such popular depictions of witches for popular market consumption, reviewing well-known portrayals from The Wizard of Oz to Bewitched to Harry Potter to WitchTok (literally billions of viewers worldwide).

This is a 3-credit course and fulfills one of the Upper Division colloquia requirements. The only prerequisite is that you must be an Honors student who has completed the Lower Division requirements.

Required texts and videos:

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, DK/Random House Penguin, 2020

The Salem Witch Hunt, Richard Godbeer, 2018

The History of Witches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-1fcjl5pWM)

The Burning Times; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMbGf1HGaSg)

Salem Witch Hunt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfQhqTTeBB4

The Chilling True Story of the Pendle Witch Trials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wegs_uHDZiE)

The Real Story of Halloween: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ltwRDR_4E

The Origin and History of Halloween: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T31hg85bqU

Additional Readings will be Taken from the Following Texts

(readings will be distributed in class prior to discussions):

Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather, 1693

American Witches, Susan Fair, 2016

The Penguin Book of Witches (2014)

A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, Daniel A. Gagnon, 2021

Teaching Philosophy:

Honors colloquia are discussion-based courses, and active participation of some kind is required. All perspectives are valued and welcome. In this colloquium, there are no right or wrong answers, or dumb questions. I will not lecture, nor will I test for short-term memorization. I will present subjects, concepts, contexts, and situations, and I will do my best to engage you in critical discussions of course content. My aim is not to train you to think like me—but to motivate you to think for yourselves. Learning is a process of self-discovery, and you learn best when you are active and interested. Thus, there will be four different activities when you will be asked to conduct research and present materials back to the class. I ask you to actively contribute to the course’s success.

Course Learning Outcomes:

1. A general familiarity with the historical development of belief systems in witches, witchcraft, and witch hunts, particularly as the phenomena and events took place in Europe from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

2. A general familiarity with the historical events that took place in Salem Village in 1692, particularly regarding gender issues and social hierarchy.

3. A general familiarity with selected primary and secondary texts discussing witches, witchcraft, and witch hunts with special focus on the Salem events and various interpretations of these events.

4. A general familiarity with depictions of witches, witchcraft, and witch hunts in art and popular media from the eighteenth century to the present, particularly in film, television, art, and social media.

5. Improved personal skills in critical thinking, reading, and writing.

Honors Colloquia Outcomes:

1. Students will integrate knowledge across different modes or domains,

2. Students will develop informed, course-related perspectives grounded in their identities, values, and academic learning.

Course Assignments:

Wednesday, August 21

Introductory discussion of course outcomes and requirements

Reading and Discussion: Short selections from Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World (1692), including Martha Carrier’s trial. Text of 4 pages will be sent to you in advance

Wednesday, August 28

Initial Discussion: Witches in Popular Media and the Popular Media Assignment

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, 12-47

Wednesday, September 04

Decisions: Popular Media Assignments

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, 62-119

Wednesday, September 11

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, 122-189