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, [log in to unmask],
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
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