Waking the Witch
Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From the podcast host of The Witch Wave and practicing witch Pam Grossman—who Vulture has dubbed the “Terry Gross of witches”—comes an exploration of the world’s fascination with witches, why they have intrigued us for centuries and why they’re more relevant now than ever.
When you think of a witch, what do you picture? Pointy black hat, maybe a broomstick. But witches in various guises have been with us for millennia. In Waking the Witch, Pam Grossman explores the impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales to the rise of contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women.
Part cultural analysis, part memoir, Waking the Witch traces the author’s own journey on the path to witchcraft, and how this has helped her find self-empowerment and purpose. It celebrates witches past, present, and future, and reveals the critical role they have played—and will continue to play—in the world as we know it.
“Deftly illuminating the past while beckoning us towards the future, Waking the Witch has all the makings of a feminist classic. Wise, relatable, and real, Pam Grossman is the witch we need for our times” (Ami McKay, author of The Witches of New York).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grossman (What Is A Witch), host of the Witch Wave podcast, analyzes archetypes, stereotypes, and characterizations of witches, real and fictional, before making the case that all women should embrace this "ultimate feminist icon" in her fun study. Grossman begins by debunking or contextualizing common beliefs about witches such as that witches are mainly teenaged outcasts before offering feminist analyses of an array of fictional characters, including the Wicked Witch of the West (here viewed as an independent woman in a male dominated world), and a superb section which explains the witchcraft throughout Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1926 feminist classic Lolly Willowes. Grossman then turns to real-world accounts of witches and their antagonists, among them Abigail Williams, who ignited the Salem witch trials, and failed 2010 Delaware senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, who was ridiculed for videos in which she admitted that she "dabbled in witchcraft." There are a few uneven memoir passages, in which Grossman writes of how she came to identify as a witch and practice witchcraft, as well as blunt political diatribes against Republicans, but these are less successful than her analyses. Nevertheless, feminist readers will be pleased by Grossman's deconstruction of witch clich s.
