This Magick Moment: Revolutionary Witchcraft and Cultural Change (NeMLA 2025) (NeMLA)
Call for Papers: Panel
Something momentous is brewing within contemporary witchcraft scholarship. Borne from calls for revolution, justice, and cultural emendation, new voices in witchcraft studies are amending antiquity within the pages of journals, educating others in forums, offering new biographical sketches for lore-based figures, and reinventing the coven for the postmodern age on #WitchTok. This scholarly, cultural, social, and preservational revolution re-frames the witch as a complicated and agential individual rather than a stereotype. Together, witchcraft scholars are re-examining the ways that previous portrayals have contributed to marginalization, gender inequity, and a deeply politicized social order. This shift challenges entrenched narratives and opens space for depictions of radical witchcraft and revolutionary witches that are represented through individual identity, within a community, or through scholarship and historical reconsideration.
The panel encourages interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary witchcraft studies, focusing on the scholarly, cultural, social, and preservational revolution that re-frames the witch as a complicated and agential individual rather than a stereotype. Approaches may include, but are not limited to:
- Literary criticism
- Cultural studies
- Preservation, museum, and archival studies
- Digital and media
- Art / art history
- Folklore or local history
- Popular culture
- Gender studies
Guidelines and Submission
All potential presenters must upload abstracts to the NeMLA portal before 30 September 2024. Submissions will not be accepted via email.
The panel will contain 3-4 in-person participants (with potential for a second session) of 15-20 minutes (2500-3000 words) plus short Q&A. Please keep this time limit in mind when submitting. Please note: per NeMLA guidelines, presenters can participate in only one session of each type: panel/seminar (both paper-based), roundtable, creative, etc. Registrants at NeMLA may not present the same abstract/paper on two different sessions.
Please use the link below to submit your abstract before September 30. Direct any questions about the panel to the chair(s) via anorr003@odu.edu and kara.mccabe@tufts.edu.
Submission link: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21036
https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21036
Aine Norris