FORUM FOR MODERN LANGUAGE STUDIES

Forthcoming Special Issue on Stagecraft and Witchcraft

Call for articles

Contributions are sought from scholars working in French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian and English Studies for a Special Issue on the historical and literary intersections of stagecraft and witchcraft.

Witchcraft and stagecraft have forever been linked in the cultural imaginary through the practice of illusion. The witch casts the glamour (a Scottish variant of ‘grammar’) and seduces the eye with the power of the tongue. This issue will explore the mutual attractions and repulsions of the witch and the stage, both in the theatre and beyond it. Of particular interest will be investigations of the cultural construction of the witch from the demonology of the Renaissance to Freud’s hysterics, where that construction intersects with representations of the witch on the stages of spoken tragedy, opera, court festival, psychoanalysis and the visual arts. Is it possible to read both the theatre and the discourse of demonology for what they can tell us about the witch as the audience’s mirror, an image heavy with the weight of both Ovid and Lacan? What happened when the theatrical public of modernity collided with the structural imperatives and paraphernalia of enchantment:!
  trickery, sleight of hand, awe, madness and magic?

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: appearances of witches in national dramatic literatures across the modern languages; the reception of Biblical witches, and witches of Greek and Latin antiquity on the stage of modernity; Circe, Medea, the witch of Endor; singing and enchantment; self-bewitchment and psychological modernity; dangerous women; the witch, the prince and political charisma; Charcot; craft, Kraft, and the power of the hand; the witch and baroque aesthetics; witchcraft as theory.

Prospective contributors are invited to send a 300-word abstract by email to the Special Issue editor, Amy Wygant, A.Wygant_at_french.arts.gla.ac.uk, by 1 February 2006. Articles chosen for further consideration must be submitted in final form by 15 November 2006 for October, 2007, publication. Length should be in the region of 5000-6000 words, including endnotes.

Inquiries are most welcome, and should be addressed by email to the Special Issue editor. Articles which do not find a place in the Special Issue will be considered for inclusion in general issues of FMLS.

http://fmls.oxfordjournals.org

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Tue Dec 13 2005 - 08:39:29 EST