This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Sempruch, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Feminist Constructions of the ‘Witch’ as a Fantasmatic Other

This article analyses the radical feminist formulations of the ‘witch’, focusing on the second-wave feminist sense of urgency to construct a political ‘we’ and to create a common identification with the historical oppression of women. The figure of the ‘witch’ represents here a dimension of (feminist) fantasy that, retrospectively, needs to be seen as a therapeutic attempt both to break through the silence and invisibility of female history and to elevate the notion of female alterity over the complementarity of the phallogocentric system. Conveying the tension between past and present, the ‘witch’ becomes a crucial metaphor for herstory, that is, a form of feminist mythology constituting an alternative to the established male-centered master-story.

Key Words: body • cultural transgression • herstory • hysteria • political fantasy • radical feminism • witch/craft

Body & Society, Vol. 10, No. 4, 113-133 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X04047858


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?