Witches and Other Dangerous Women

Catalog description

This course will adopt an interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transnational approach to the historical study of female subversion and insubordination. From the sirens of Greek mythology to the witches of 15th-17th century Europe, from prostitutes in Victorian London to female suicide bombers in Palestine, from the Malinche in colonial Mexico to the young Iranian vampire in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, from the hysterical woman to the infanticidal mother, we will engage historical and literary texts, art, films, and other media to examine the processes through which these real and imaginary figures became objects of fear and came to be perceived as a threat to the social order.