Fuelled by Diana Pho and Ashley Rogers’s discussion of the speculative as it convenes, contrasts with and unsettles white Western-centric and heteropatriarchal conceptions of the feminine-coded witch, Dan Vena and Emma Croll-Baehre will host a Reflection Circle that encourages participants to envision ‘the witch’ beyond a normative, essentialist framework. The Reflection Circle will be structured as follows:
-Introductions/Welcome
-An overview of the Reflection Circle concept
-A brief recapping of Diana and Ashley’s talk
-Dan and Emma will introduce the following topic as a catalyst for dialogue:
Given that the witch has been historically elided with the organic (nature), serving to reinforce the figure’s association with an essentialized (‘natural’) femininity, how might we problematize essentialist understandings of gender by conceiving of the witch as inorganic (‘unnatural’)?
-Participants will be divided into ‘break out rooms’ to reflect on the prompt and other possible lines of enquiry raised by Diana and Ashley’s talk (15 minutes).
-We will reconvene for discussion in order to share our findings (20 minutes).
-We will conclude by considering how an anti-essentialist understanding of the witch might shape our work (research, activism, art, etc.) and other daily practices (spiritual, etc.) (10 minutes).
Please Note: this event will not be recorded.
Fuelled by Diana Pho and Ashley Rogers’s discussion of the speculative as it convenes, contrasts with and unsettles white Western-centric and heteropatriarchal conceptions of the feminine-coded witch, Dan Vena and Emma Croll-Baehre will host a Reflection Circle that encourages participants to envision ‘the witch’ beyond a normative, essentialist framework. The Reflection Circle will be structured as follows:
-Introductions/Welcome
-An overview of the Reflection Circle concept
-A brief recapping of Diana and Ashley’s talk
-Dan and Emma will introduce the following topic as a catalyst for dialogue:
Given that the witch has been historically elided with the organic (nature), serving to reinforce the figure’s association with an essentialized (‘natural’) femininity, how might we problematize essentialist understandings of gender by conceiving of the witch as inorganic (‘unnatural’)?
-Participants will be divided into ‘break out rooms’ to reflect on the prompt and other possible lines of enquiry raised by Diana and Ashley’s talk (15 minutes).
-We will reconvene for discussion in order to share our findings (20 minutes).
-We will conclude by considering how an anti-essentialist understanding of the witch might shape our work (research, activism, art, etc.) and other daily practices (spiritual, etc.) (10 minutes).
Please Note: this event will not be recorded.