Call for Papers: Magic and Witchcraft Conference 2025
24 th – 25 th June 2025, University of York
Theme: What is a Witch?
We are delighted to invite paper proposals for the CREMS (University of York) Magic and Witchcraft
Conference 2025. This year’s theme is inspired by conversations begun at a conference on
Witchcraft and Authority, held in Copenhagen in October 2024. Drawing together scholars from
across Europe and North America, it quickly became clear that while understandings and the
prosecution of witchcraft was indisputably bound up with questions of authority, what was meant by
a ‘witch’ varied considerably between regions, and even between decades. The result is that, at
times, we speak across each-other in our research, drawing conclusions based on conflicting
definitions and parameters of what we study.
We therefore propose to re-open the discussion on what we, as scholars, mean when we refer to
witchcraft. In short: what is a witch?
Papers are invited which address this question, and particularly those looking at the period from
Antiquity to 1850. Suggested sub-themes include, but are not limited to:
– Legal definitions of witchcraft: intra- and international comparisons particularly welcome
– Folk conceptions of witchcraft: What constituted the crime of witchcraft in popular perception, and who were perceived as its practitioners?
-Maleficium: is real-world harm a necessary component of the definition of a witch?
-Magic beyond the Christian paradigm: is the term ‘witch’ meaningful outside Christian cultures?
-The feminist lens: Does the identification of historical witchcraft as “gender-based persecution” remain applicable to the definition of the historical witch?
-Literary / cultural portrayals of the witch
Abstracts of 200-300 words should be sent to magicwitchcraft2024@gmail.com by 14th of March 2025. Please include your name, institutional affiliation (if any), and your intention to attend in person or online.
Keynote speakers
Julian Goodare (University of Edinburgh) – What is a Witch in Scottish Literature?
Rita Voltmer (University of Trier) – Beyond the Village Witch: The many faces of the witch in European witch trials
Ceri Holbrooke (University of Hertfordshire) – Unstoppering the Witch Bottle
Organisers
Debora Moretti (University of Hertfordshire) and Tabitha Stanmore (University of Exeter)