This roundtable considers how meme, zine, and monetary circulation can be activated, deployed, and altogether reimagined for international, witch-worthy intents. First, Barbara Dynda considers how the figure of the witch and spiritual practices were used in the anarcha-feminist zine Wiedźma to mobilize women from rural areas and to to oppose Poland’s sexist, Catholic, and homophobic culture of the early 1990s.
Similarly, Shana MacDonald and Brianna I. Wiens explore the ways in which Western feminists have reclaimed the symbol and power of the witch from misogynists through the production of memes. They offer a critical analysis of the figure of the witch in feminist digital meme activism, using a small data approach to highlight the emotions and affects produced by these circulations.
Next, Gabriel Menotti brings attention to the months leading to the United States 2016 presidential election, during which 4chan website users acted as if they were engaged in collective rituals to bend reality. In response, he explores how chaos magick’s operational principles – based on the value of raw belief and the production of images intended for mass circulation – allow for efficient means of fabulation and freestyle mythmaking.
Lastly, Meredith Graves considers how crowdfunding technologies play several critical, yet still fundamentally occulted roles in continuing expansion of contemporary interest in, and community around, witchcraft. They show how crowdfunding can be understood not only as a means of accumulating capital, but as a somewhat secret and massively powerful magical system or tool of enchantment unto itself -- able to bring about changes in the lives of individual artists and creators, as well as seismic shifts in our cultural relationship to the occult arts.
Please Note: this event will be recorded.
This roundtable considers how meme, zine, and monetary circulation can be activated, deployed, and altogether reimagined for international, witch-worthy intents. First, Barbara Dynda considers how the figure of the witch and spiritual practices were used in the anarcha-feminist zine Wiedźma to mobilize women from rural areas and to to oppose Poland’s sexist, Catholic, and homophobic culture of the early 1990s.
Similarly, Shana MacDonald and Brianna I. Wiens explore the ways in which Western feminists have reclaimed the symbol and power of the witch from misogynists through the production of memes. They offer a critical analysis of the figure of the witch in feminist digital meme activism, using a small data approach to highlight the emotions and affects produced by these circulations.
Next, Gabriel Menotti brings attention to the months leading to the United States 2016 presidential election, during which 4chan website users acted as if they were engaged in collective rituals to bend reality. In response, he explores how chaos magick’s operational principles – based on the value of raw belief and the production of images intended for mass circulation – allow for efficient means of fabulation and freestyle mythmaking.
Lastly, Meredith Graves considers how crowdfunding technologies play several critical, yet still fundamentally occulted roles in continuing expansion of contemporary interest in, and community around, witchcraft. They show how crowdfunding can be understood not only as a means of accumulating capital, but as a somewhat secret and massively powerful magical system or tool of enchantment unto itself -- able to bring about changes in the lives of individual artists and creators, as well as seismic shifts in our cultural relationship to the occult arts.
Please Note: this event will be recorded.