This essay aims to examine what the figure of the witch as a motif in art has looked like and how it has changed through history. The study focuses on witches in the iconography of the renaissance, the 19th century and contemporary art. Two artworks are chosen from each period, one typical for the witchcraft iconography of that specific era and one atypical. The artworks are then analyzed in relation to literary sources concerning the role of the witch in the time period they were made. By doing this, the essay also examines how the witch-hunts of the 1400-1600s affected the iconography of that period, and how in later epochs other societal shifts and situations such as the widespread prostitution of the 19th century and our own struggles today with issues such as the climate crisis can be related to the witch through the lens of art. The essay argues that the witch as a motif has changed throughout art history, from being depicted as a mostly dangerous or at best satirical figure during the renaissance, to a seductive femme fatale in the 19th century, and at last a symbol of feminist, post-colonial and environmental resistance in contemporary art. It is also argued that some aspects of the witch have survived thoughout these five hundred years, such as the idea of the witch as a disruptor of the norm and her ability to create a new world that is an upside-down version of our own.

It is a generally accepted scholarly truth that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was written with the intent of pleasing the newly crowned James I, a few years after his ascension to the English throne in 1603. The main arguments for this claim are, first, Shakespeare’s inclusion of witches—a well-known interest of James’s—and second, the portrayal of Banquo, the fictional ancestor of the House of Stuart. Some recent scholarship has, however, questioned this view, arguing, among other things, that James did not wish to be associated with his Scottish heritage and that witchcraft is not as prominent in Shakespeare’s play as it might have been if pleasing James was his objective. In this paper, I look specifically at the part of the theory of “the royal play” which pertains to the question of the witches and, against the background of this recent research, argue that Shakespeare’s reasons for including witches in his play have less to do with James and more to do with his own interest in human psychology. By analysing the ways in which Shakespeare adapts his sources—the chronicles of Raphael Holinshed and Hector Boece—I argue, first, that Shakespeare is less interested in catering specifically to James’s demonological theories than to make the three women into witches as such. Secondly, I compare the function of prophecy in Macbeth to Greek tragedy and the historical writing of Holinshed and Boece against the sociological theory of George Park and argue that Shakespeare’s purpose in letting witches function as the deliverers of prophecy is to create an element of uncertainty and thus a vantage point from which to explore the psychological complexities of human decision-making and the perils of trusting appearances.

L'esclavage constitue le chronotope de "Tituba" de M. Condé et de "Beloved" de T. Morrison. Il est un héritage paradigmatique dans les autres œuvres de ces auteures, ainsi que chez Alice Walker et Gisèle Pineau, déterminant les rapports raciaux contemporains. La fragmentation du corps esclave convoque le motif de la couture, entre tissage conteur, re-membrement du corps social, et reconfiguration d'une tâche traditionnellement féminine. La mise en exergue du pouvoir performatif des mots des maîtres rappelle l’historicité et la dimension politique de l'invention du racisme dans le régime plantocratique. L'exemple de la beauté féminine et de sa racialisation illustre l'intrication complexe de la construction du genre et de la race. Mais le récit du passé esclavagiste, s'il peut éclairer et expliquer le présent, n'est fait qu'au prix d'un combat douloureux contre divers processus de refoulements, individuels et collectifs. Si "Beloved" et "La couleur Pourpre" rappellent le rôle essentiel de la réminiscence, "Paradis", "Morne Câpresse" et "Heremakhonon" mettent en scène des hypertrophies mémorielles problématiques ou drolatiques. La critique de la prétention historienne à l'objectivité y participe d'une remise en cause globale de la scientificité et de l'héritage des Lumières. Les ambivalences de la postmémoire s'opposent à la sacralisation contemporaine de la littérature mémorielle ou testimoniale, et la hantise postcoloniale se donne à voir sous un jour nouveau, ironique. L'analyse des maternités dialectiques dans "Beloved", "Tituba" ou "Rosie Carpe" permet de réfléchir le lien entre narration de la nation, racialisation de la maternité et contrôle du corps des femmes. Une lecture des œuvres du corpus à l'aune du concept d'intersectionnalité permet d'envisager une déconstruction globale de la féminité libérée de l'injonction à la sexualité reproductive. Au croisement du pouvoir de donner la vie et de son refus, le personnage de la sage-femme est récurrent. Souvent accusée de sorcellerie, elle nourrit une mythologie féminine qui peut retourner le stigmate magique. Fruit de rivalités dans les champs médicaux et religieux, la figure de la sorcière chez Toni Morrison, Maryse Condé ou Marie NDiaye est une invention interculturelle dont la force performative et parodique ébranle les catégories littéraires. Issus du traumatisme de l'esclavage, les romans étudiés esquissent les contours d'utopies concrètes. Leur dimension totalitaire et séparatiste cependant se révèle dans le visage grimaçant de l'espérance eschatologie contemporaine : la secte. Si la projection dans le futur semble ainsi dérisoire, le retour en un espace premier, refuge utérin et remontée dans le temps, s'abîme dans l'impossibilité du retour en Afrique. La Négritude césairienne est ainsi mise à distance, tandis que les espoirs de la Créolité semblent battus en brèche par une littérature récusant l'utopie post-raciale. Les migrations contemporaines et les douleurs de la condition exilique sont narrées sans idéalisation de la mobilité, tandis que les stratégies narratives des auteures diffèrent, tout en se retrouvant dans un désir de révéler en même temps que de dépasser la ligne de couleur. / Slavery is the chronotope of "Tituba" by M. Condé and "Beloved" by T. Morrison. Slavery is a paradigmatic heritage in other novels by these authors, as well as in Alice Walker's and Gisèle Pineau's art ; it determines the contemporary racial relationships. The splitting up of the slave's body calls to mind the pattern of sewing, narrative weaving, re-membering of the social body, and reinventing a traditionally feminine work. The highlighting of performative power of the master's words reminds us the historicity and the politic aspect of the invention of racism in the plantation system. The example of women's beauty and its racialization illustrates the complicated co-construction of gender and race. The writing of past history of slavery points out and explains the present time, but it requires a painful fight against various processes of individual and collective repression. "Beloved" and "The Color Purple" remind us of the importance of rememory, while "Paradise", "Morne Câpresse" and "Heremakhonon" tell about memory in excess. The criticism of historian claim for objectivity belongs to a global questioning of science on the one hand, and of the heritage of Enlightenment on the other. The ambivalences of postmemory confront the contemporary sacralization of memorial and testimonial literature. Postcolonial haunting is seen in a nex light, quite ironic. The analysis of dialectic motherhood in "Beloved", "Tituba" or "Rosie Carpe" allows us to conceptualise the link between national storytelling, racialization of motherhood and political control of women's bodies. Reading and analysing the novels with the concept of intersectionality shows a global deconstruction of womanhood, freed from the stress of reproductive sexuality. At the crossroad of women's power to give birth and death, the midwife is a recurring character. The midwife is often accused of being a witch, and she belongs to a feminine mythology that can turn the stigma around. The witch is born from rivalry in both religious and medical fields. In Toni Morrison's, Maryse Condé's or Marie Ndiaye's novels, the witch is an intercultural invention ; her parodic and performative strength undermines literary categories. Born from the trauma of slavery, the novels outline the pattern of concrete utopias. The totalitarian and separatist aspect of these utopias appears in the grinning face of the contemporary eschatological hope: the sect. Therefore any hope of a better future seems to be ridiculous ; when the return to a primary space, turning back in time, is dying in the impossible way back to Africa. The "Négritude" of Aimé Césaire is dismissed, and so are the hopes of "Créolité", by a literature that rejects post-racial utopia. There is not any idealization of movement in these novels, which tell contemporary migrations and pains of exile condition. Although the narrative strategies are different, they all intend to expose and overcome the color line.

Die Hexenbesenkrankheit (Crinipellis perniciosa) ist eine Pilzkrankheit, die nur meristematisches Pflanzengewebe des Kakaobaumes befällt. Sie tritt bisher ausschließlich auf dem Lateinamerikanischen Kontinent auf. Für die Region des Alto Beni im feuchttropischen Tiefland Boliviens wurden die Interaktionen zwischen Witterung, Inokulum und Phänologie der Wirtspflanze untersucht, um effiziente und ökonomisch vertretbare Kontroll- und Bekämpfungsprogramme zu entwickeln. Von 1994 bis 97 wurden zudem die Kakaoklone ICS 1, ICS 6, ICS 8, ICS 95 und TSH 565 unter Feldbedingungen auf Hexenbesentoleranz und Ertrag untersucht. Zusätzlich wurden unterschiedliche Baumschnittfrequenzen auf ihre Effizienz hinsichtlich des Ertragsverhaltens der Klone und der Auswirkung auf Hexenbeseninfektionen überprüft. Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen Zusammenhang zwischen Niederschlagsereignissen und der Ausbildung von Fruchtkörpern an Hexenbesen. Es konnte im gesamten Untersuchungszeitraum jedoch kein kausaler Zusammenhang zwischen der Intensität von Fruchtkörperbildungen an Hexenbesentrieben und der Anzahl an Hexenbeseninfektionen der untersuchten Bäume festgestellt werden. Die fünf Klone zeigten sowohl signifikante Unterschiede in Bezug auf ihre Anfälligkeit gegenüber Hexenbesen als auch in ihrem Ertragsverhalten. Die unterschiedliche Schnitthäufigkeit zeigte dagegen weder statistisch abgesicherte Differenzen hinsichtlich der Anzahl von Hexenbeseninfektionen noch hatte sie Einfluss auf den Ertrag. Die gängigen Bekämpfungsmethoden wie Baumschnitt und der Einsatz von tolerantem Pflanzenmaterial stellen keine grundsätzliche Lösung des Problems dar. Die bisher gewonnen Erfahrungen im Landbau unter Anwendung der Prinzipien sukzessionaler Agroforstsysteme zeigten, dass diese möglicherweise eine langfristige Perspektive für die Landnutzung in tropischen Regionen und zur Reduzierung phytosanitärer Probleme darstellen könnten. / The witches’ broom disease (Crinipellis perniciosa) is a fungal infection which only affects the meristematic plant tissues of the cocoa tree. To date it has been restricted to the Latin American continent. The aim of this work was to examine scientifically the measures undertaken in the Alto Beni region in the humid tropical lowlands of Bolivia, to curb the witches’ broom disease (Crinipellis perniciosa) by phytosanitary pruning measures and by the use of various tolerant clones From 1994 to 97, the cocoa clones ICS 1, ICS 6, ICS 8, ICS 95 and TSH 565 were also studied under field conditions at the Sapecho location for witches’ broom tolerance and yield. In addition, various pruning frequencies were examined for their efficiency with regard to the yields of the clones and the effects on witches’ broom infection The results show a connection between rainfall levels and the formation of basidiocarps on the witches’ broom. However, over the whole of the investigation period, no causal connection was found between the intensity of basidiocarp production on the witches’ broom shoots and the number of witches’ broom infections on the trees under investigation. The five clones showed significant differences both in relation to their susceptibility to witches’ broom and in their yields. The different pruning frequencies, on the other hand, did not show any statistically provable differences in terms of the number of witches’ broom infections, nor did they influence the yields. It has become clear that neither the own studies nor the many research works undertaken at an international level were able to find a fundamental solution to the witches’ broom problem. Agriculture using the principles of successional agroforestry systems could represent a long-term perspective for land use in these areas, with the emphasis on more than short-term economic, social or structural objectives.

This essay examines the inherent instability present in Diana Wynne Jones’ 1986 novel Howl’s Moving Castle. I suggest that in relying on the ambiguity of the story and the setting, Jones creates not only a more complex universe, but allows the characters to be multidimensional -- both literally and figuratively -- without having any stable selves. Using deconstruction as a (non-existent) foundation for my analysis, I contend that the strength of the story is in the looseness of it. Thus, by using a Derridean approach with added Cixousian feminist elements and a heap of Kristevian intertextuality, I further argue that Jones invites the reader to embrace the ambiguity of identity by closely analyzing the conflicting behaviours of the two main characters in the novel, Sophie Hatter and Wizard Howl. In conclusion, I argue that Diana Wynne Jones through subverting classic fairy tale tropes in an ingenious way, suggests that there is no such thing as a final finished growing person and that there is comfort to be found in embracing this incompleteness.

In order to establish a working understanding of borders, the critical conversation must be conscious of how the border is being used politically, theoretically, and socially. This thesis focuses on the border as forcibly ensuring the performance of identity as individuals, within the context of borderlands, become embodiments of the border, and their performance of identity is created by the influence of external borders that become internalized. The internalized border can be read both as infection, a problematic divide needing to be removed, as well as an opportunity for bridging, crossing that divide. I bring together Charles Bowden (Blue Desert), Monique Mojica (Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots), Leslie Marmon Silko (Ceremony, Almanac of the Dead), and Guillermo Verdecchia (Fronteras Americanas) in order to develop a comprehensive analysis of the border and border identity development. In these texts, individuals are forced to negotiate their sense of self according to pre-existing cultural and social expectations on either side of the border, performing identity according to how they want to be socially perceived. The result can often be read as a fragmentation of identity, a discrepancy between how the individual feels and how they are read. I examine how identity performance occurs within the context of the border, brought on by violence and exemplified through the division between the spirit world and the material world, the manipulation of costuming and uniforms, and the body. / Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Master’s Award).

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This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe. Starting from the view of blood as a liminal matter, manifesting fertile, positive aspects in conjunction with dangerous, negative ones, I show how it was believed to attract supernatural forces within the natural world. It could empower or pollute, restore health or waste corporeal and spiritual existence. While this theme has been studied in a medieval religious context and by anthropologists, its relevance during the early modern period has not been explored. I argue that, considering the impact of the Reformation on people’s mentalities, studying the way in which ideas regarding blood and the body changed from late medieval times to the eighteenth century can provide new insights about patterns of social and religious tensions, such as the witch-trials and persecutions. In this regard the thesis engages with anthropological theories, comparing the dialectic between blood and body with that between identity and society, demonstrating that they both spread from the conflict of life with death, leading to the social embodiment or to the rejection of an individual. A comparative approach is also employed to analyze blood symbolism in Protestant and Catholic countries, and to discuss how beliefs were influenced by both cultural similarities and religious differences. Combining historical sources, such as witches’ confessions, with appropriate examples from anthropology I also examine a corpus of popular ideas, which resisted to theological and learned notions or slowly merged with them. Blood had different meanings for different sections of society, embodying both the physical struggle for life and the spiritual value of the Christian soul. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 develop the dualism of the fluid in late medieval and early modern ritual murder accusations against Jews, European witchcraft and supernatural beliefs and in the medical and philosophical knowledge, while chapters 5 and 6 focus on blood themes in Protestant England and in Counter-Reformation Italy. Through the examination of blood in these contexts I hope to demonstrate that contrasting feelings, fears and beliefs related to dangerous or extraordinary individuals, such as Jews, witches, and Catholic saints, but also superhuman beings such as fairies, vampires and werewolves, were rooted in the perception of the body as an unstable substance, that was at the base of ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes.

This thesis shows how misogynous and stereotypical images of women, which historically have been used to transform them into witches and monsters, are now reused in the construction of the term “batikhäxa” (“tie-dye witch”). Feminist and discourse theory form the framework of this study which includes the analysis of three opinion pieces, or political pamphlets, that were published between 2010 – 2018: "Batikhäxorna och makten" by the pseudonym Julia Caesar, "Refugee 'Children" & The Women Who Sexually Exploit Them" by the pseudonym Angry Foreigner and "De ansvariga för Sveriges kaos behöver en intervention för att ställas till svars " by Katerina Janouch. I use critical discourse analysis to study how discursive strategies are applied in these political pamphlets to delegitimate women, making them the scapegoats of society by use of the concept of the tie-dye witch. My thesis argues that the use of the tie-dye witch discourse reproduces patriarchal power relations by denying women the right to have and express their opinions, decide over their own bodies and exercise power in society. The tie-dye witch can therefore also be understood as an anti-feminist counterimage to the feminist witch who was established as a female role model in the 1960s. The study also uncovers the psychological function of the tie-dye witch as a female super monster who demarks the borders of nation, culture, religion, body and gender. In the studied texts, the tie-dye witch is constructed to separate "us" from "the others", and in doing so she also acts as a unifying figure in and of anti-feminist, islamophobic, xenophobic, nationalist and apocalyptic discourses.

This project considers the ways in which Wiccan marriage and American marriage law interact with each other. The thesis examines certain aspects of the history of 20th-century American marriage law, the concurrent development of contemporary marriage ritual in Wicca, developing problems in this area, and possible solutions. In particular, the project focuses on the recognition of religious groups and their officials as they are authorized by state and federal law to perform marriages and how this process has affected Wiccan ritual.