Tag: Pagan studies

What Female Heathen Instagrammers Reveal

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment
Instagrammer Helheimen as the goddess Hel.
Instagrammer Helheimen as the goddess Hel.

Another article from the new issue of The Pomegranate on the theme of Paganism, art, and fashion, guest-edited by Caroline Tully.

“Hashtag Heathens: Contemporary Germanic Pagan Feminine Visuals on Instagram,” by Ross Downing. You can download the entire paper free at the link this summer. Here is the abstract:

A rising number of young adult females use Instagram, posting pictures with hashtags which alert Instagram users to their specific interests. Heathens have also begun to use Instagram and in order to better understand this new feature of the religious movement I interviewed fifteen Instagram account owners whom I identified by three factors.

1. Their use of three or more of the following hashtags: #norsewitch #heathengirl #seidr #volva #galdr #norsepagan #heathensofInstagram #witch #runes #viking #shamanism #witchesofInstagram
2. Their personal identification as Heathen, Asatru, Norse Pagan, or otherwise expressing spiritual belief in a Nordic mythology.
3. The account had at least 500 followers, indicating the likelihood of having an impact on Heathens, Pagans, and sympathetic individuals.

My focus is to document the processes and dynamics of Instagram as a medium for religious communication from the point of view of producers of religious content: the alpha Instagram account owners. The data shows that these young females apply significant theological thought in their posts and most have a strong sense of responsibility to teach others about Heathenry. The data departs from previous research on Instagram and Heathenry in that the account owners appear to have altruistic motives in the first instance and an affirmative non-political epistemology in the second.

 

Fashion Designers Borrowing from Paganism

On By Chas S. Clifton
From a fashion shoot at Breen Down— site of Dion Fortune’s novel The Sea Priestess. Headpiece by Charlotte Rodgers, photo by Marc Aitken (www.marcaitken.com).

In her Pomegranate article “High Glamour: Magical Clothing and Talismanic Fashion,” designer Charlotte Rodgers asks, “Why now?”

The iconography and visuals associated with magic are highly evocative and responsible for a major part of its appeal. The strong, often iconoclastic imagery exerts a particularly powerful draw for the artist or craftsperson because of its ability to fire the imagination, and to inspire creative work in response. Until recent times, creative interpretations of magic within mainstream fashion have mainly been on a subtle and subversive level; generally within a counter cultural context.  So why is magical symbolism being appropriated within high fashion at this particular point in time?

This article is part of Pomegranate’s “Paganism, Art, and Fashion” special issue, guest-edited by Caroline Tully. All content may be downloaded for free at this time.

Paganism, Art, And Fashion: “Feminist Interpretation of Witches”

On By Chas S. Clifton
Sheela-na-gig figure interpreted by the Swedish artist Monica Sjöö (1938–2005).

In her artlcle for The Pomegranate, Katy Deepwell, editor of the feminist art journal n.paradoxa, discusses “Feminist Interpretations of Witches and the Witch Craze in Contemporary Art by Women.” (Free download at this time — and the illustrations are in color where possible.)

In her abstract, she writes,

This article considers feminist interpretations of the witch in contemporary art in relation to the witch craze: examples are by Georgia Horgan, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Mathilde ter Heijne, Monica Sjöö, Tania Antoshina, Helen Chadwick, Jesse Jones, and Carolee Schneemann. The argument explores the ways that the figure of the witch is analyzed in three different feminist critiques of patriarchy, and subsequently pursues how these ideas have been taken up in contemporary art by these women artists. The differences between three authors: Matilda Joslyn Gage (1893); Mary Daly (1984); and Silvia Federici (2004) are highlighted and contrasted to other historians’ analyses from the last thirty years of the fate of women accused as witches during the European Witch Hunt between the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. This was a paper given at Misogyny: Witches and Wicked Bodies, Institute of Contemporary Arts, (ICA) London in March 2015.

The “Paganism, Art, and Fashion” Issue of The Pomegranate

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment
Design by Gareth Pugh inspired
by the Padstow Oss.

A new issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies devoted to Paganism, art, and fashion has been published online (print to follow) and is currently available as “open acess,” in other words, free downloads.

It is guest-edited by Caroline Tully (University of Melbourne), who writes in her introduction,

This special issue of The Pomegranate on Paganism, Art, and Fashion was inspired by the increase in the last few years of both extremely beautifully styled and curated witchcraft and Pagan accounts on social media, often owned by young women who are also selling related products, and apparent interest in witchcraft and associated magical topics by fashion designers and magazines. Glamorous “witch” accounts on Instagram feature carefully composed and choreographed, beautiful images that rival the professional photography of fashion publications. In these romanticized visual vignettes young women adopting a witchy aesthetic are the stylists, models, and photographers, as well as business owners, mixing aesthetics, popularity and entrepreneurship together as part of an empowering fourth-wave-feminist-meets-New-Age package. Such accounts are made by and cater to the new, young, intersectional iGen witches, but fashion mega-brands are also realizing the appeal of Pagan archetypes and subsequently plumbing the now decidedly vintag second-wave feminist penchant for female empowerment through the idea of the “Great Goddess.”

I will be uploading more links as the week goes on.

Read The Pomegranate and Other Equinox Journals for Free

On By Chas S. Clifton5 Comments

Equinox Publishing, which publishes The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, has made the last year’s worth of its journals available online at no cost. Here is the announcement:

Campus and library closures and, for many, the abrupt switch to remote teaching and learning are causing shockwaves through the academic community. If nothing else, the crisis has underlined the critical need for publishers to improve the user experience in accessing content remotely. To help, we are offering the following routes to Equinox content for our current subscribers as well as others who are compiling online courses and may need to access book content:

– all journal issues published in the last 12 months will be opened and all new issues  will be freely accessible until the crisis abates

Read the complete announcement, which affects some ebooks and textbooks, here.

If you try it and have problems — or if you try it and experience success — please let me know in the comments.

 

Conference on Current Pagan Studies 4: Albrecht Auditorium

On By Chas S. Clifton3 Comments
Jeffrey Albaugh drawing a winning raffle ticket for something from Equinox Publishing.

Part 1: The Southwest Chief

Part 2: Holing up in Claremont

Part 3: Harper Hall

I titled this post because my friend Jeffrey Albaugh, one of the conference organizers, more than once admitted that he just loved saying “Albrecht Auditorium.” It’s a German given name and surname and also connects to “Alberich,” the dwarf who guards a treasure in Wagner’s operatic cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen.

On the opening day, Saturday, January 25th, I admit that among the various talks on dealing with bad changes — extinctions, elections, end times— the one talk that really stuck with me was Murtagh anDoile’s “With a Whimper, not a Bang: The ‘Death’ of Pagan and Magical Traditions.” It put me in mind of a talk that I had with my friend Evan John Jones (English witch, member of Robert Cochrane’s coven in the mid-1960s), who said that on his death, all his Craft-related papers were supposed to be burnt.

From my vantage point, a very long way away, I do not know what happened. As a writer, John left behind at least some records that deserve to be archived. Maybe not everything, but some things.

This is not the Pagan studies conference (photo: Claremont Graduate University).

At any rate, the Albrecht Auditorium is an up-to-date lecture hall at Claremont Graduate University, with lots of elbow room, AC and USB chargers at every seat, and other good stuff. So when I finally had to stand up and fill an hour on the history of Pagan studies and some things that I would like to see more covered in the future, it was a pleasure to be in that room.

It was a good conference where you could hear thoughtful Pagans discuss our response to some of the Big Issues — and like all conferences, the best parts were in the restaurants and bars afterwards! But about about 6:30 on Sunday evening I had to pry myself from the big table at Packing House Wines (in the same complex as Augie’s Coffee, where my Claremont visit began) and accept a ride from a conference-goer who was headed east through San Bernardino anyway.

The train rolled in on time. I had booked a roomette (sleeper) because I knew I would be tired. I dropped my bags, went to the dining car for supper (included), and when I came back the attendant had my bed made up, into which I fell.

Around 2 a.m. an announcement from the conductor woke me (and everyone else).  A man in my car was having an acute asthma attack. “Does anyone have an EpiPen?)”

I thought for a moment — I did not have my first-aid kit with me, so I could not even offer pseudopehedrine. And does a Wilderness First Aid card let you give drugs? I think so, if they are over-the-counter things like that. But I had none. Twenty minutes later we were stopped in Kingman, Arizona, and as another passenger told me at breakfast, the ambulance was waiting and took him away.

And thus on across New Mexico and southern Colorado, where I retrieved the Jeep at the railway station and drove home at night through an increasing snowstorm, past the signs that warn that roads are not plowed after 5 p.m.

Conference on Current Pagan Studies 3: Harper Hall

On By Chas S. Clifton3 Comments
A cup of the free hotel coffee, and Black Philip and I are ready to conference deliciously.

Part 1: The Southwest Chief

Part 2: Holing up in Claremont

It was a 20-minute walk from the hotel to Claremont Graduate University, where the Conference on Current Pagan Studies rents space during CGU’s winter break. CGU is one of the seven “Claremont Colleges” — five undergrad, two graduate schools — that together form a “collegiate university.” Six of them share a campus with a combined library and other facilities. Pomona College, the oldest, dates from 1887; the others were founded in the 1920s, which must have been when Claremont shifted from “citrus town” to residential suburb of Los Angeles.

Walking to CGU, I did not see anything that resembled a “student ghetto,” which made me wonder if there is such a thing as off-campus housing, or if those students must all commute.

No, definitely not the “student ghetto.”


Was I on the right street? I looked at some license plates. Yes, this must be the right building.

When Fritz Muntean started The Pomegranate in 1997, its subtitle was “A New Journal of Neopagan Thought.” That approach fits this conference too, and in fact, a new online journal is in the works that will take up that strand of Pagan publishing, I was told. More on that when I learn more.

The conference draws a mixture of older and younger Pagan academics, at least one outside PhD student researching Paganism in academia, some writers, some original West Coast Pagan figures from the 1960s–70s, and other members of the (chiefly) West Coast Pagan community.

The difference between this and the American Academy of Religion Pagan studies sessions that I am used to is that there is less of a sense of working on issues in the larger world(s) of religious studies and more a sense of telling our own stories, working on our own issues (like what happens to archives when groups shut down?), examining our origin stories, and talking about what is changing.

The first day’s venue: CGU’s Harper Hall, a fine example of 1930s Romano-Californian architecture.
Conference attendees begin to gather in the CGU Board of Trustees room, a comfortable space with open doors onto a courtyard — but pretty soon there were chairs jammed everywhere.

Part 4: Albrecht Auditorium

Conference on Current Pagan Studies 2: Holing Up in Claremont

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments
Sunrise scene, Claremont station.

Part 1: The Southwest Chief

After killing time at Augie’s Coffee, I faced a mile walk through bosky Claremont to the hotel, but because of the roller bag, I gave in and summoned a Lyft driver. No need to put extra wear on the little plastic wheels. That is my story, and I am sticking to it.

Expecting to be told that my room would not be ready until 2 p.m., I was happy to learn that I could have it right there at 8:30 a.m. I could sleep! Only I could not. Exercise is good, so I did walk about a mile to a copy-print shot to get fliers made up promoting The Pomegranate and Jefferson Calico’s excellent new book on Heathenry, Being Viking.

I spotted a Trader Joe’s grocery near the hotel, and picked up a sandwich and a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck.((Charles Shaw wine, the grocery chain’s house brand, is priced at $1.99 for 750 ml, the same as a small bottle of water at the hotel. Now which is a better deal?)) Half a bottle gone, I finally slept.

Later, I spent the evening re-reading parts of George Hanson’s The Trickster and the Paranormal (2001). This is not an easy book. Hanson was a paid university parapsychology researcher, one of a “club” of about fifty such people in the United States. As he points out, the budget of one paranormal-themed Hollywood movie is bigger than the budgets of all the programs such as his.

The book is not an easy read. It goes into lots of area: sociological theory, history of paranormal researched, history and personalities of the professional skeptics (think CSICOP), the prevalence of cheating by psychics, etc. Hanson wonders why, when at least half of the population accepts some level of “psi” phenomena, it is so completely off the table for academic researchers. Likewise, scholars of religion are all about texts, not “woo.” They would rather discuss gender theory than people’s experience with divine power. (Hint: part of the problem is monotheism and the idea of a transcendent god who is outside of the cosmos.)

There are exceptions, my favorite being Jeffrey Kripal at Rice University. I want to blog about some of his newer work . . one of these days.

And so to bed, because the next two days would be wall-to-wall sociability.

Part 3: Harper Hall

Conference on Current Pagan Studies 1: The Southwest Chief

On By Chas S. Clifton3 Comments
Off-season, the train was only half full, which meant that there were armchairs and tables for the taking in the lounge car. I bought a beer at the snack bar downstairs and watched northern New Mexico go past.

I was honored this year to be asked to give a keynote address at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies.((The other keynoter was the feminist writer and poet Judy Grahn. Yes, the website badly needs an upgrade.)) For journeys under 500 miles — and sometimes more — I would rather drive. If the trip is longer, I look first to see if Amtrak will get me there. If all else fails, I end up jammed into a metal cylinder with a bunch of strangers, which is about as much fun as being stuck in an elevator.

Southern Colorado to southern California is a combination of the first two — drive a bit, and then catch Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, get off in San Bernardino, and catch a Metrolink commuter train west to Claremont, where the conference was to be held at Claremont Graduate University.

Santo Domingo Pueblo, north of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I booked a coach seat on the way out, which would be easier on the organizers’ travel budget ($112), and used Amtrak reward points to get a roomette (sleeper) on the way back.((The best way to accrue reward points is to use Amtrak’s Guest Rewards Mastercard.))

Understand that a coach seat on the train is huger than first-class on an airplane. Muchly huger. You have a foot rest and a leg rest. You can recline your seat without bashing the passenger behind you. Smart passengers bring a small blanket and a pillow and make themselves quite comfortable.

Refueling in Albuquerque. Basically, one locomotive pulls the train while the other powers all the onboard electrical systems — refrigeration, HVAC, toilets, lights, etc.

Me, I had a warm jacket, but I forgot the inflatable neck pillow, So it goes. I made myself comfortable, stretched across two seats—the car was only half-full. After a burger at the station snack bar in Albquerque, followed by a little whiskey from my flask, I opened an episode of the Strange Familiars podcast on my phone and rode west into the night.

I usually can sleep anywhere, but not this time. I don’t blame all the podcast discussion of fairy orbs, Bigfoot, “hell gates,” ghosts, etc., but rather the fact that I would have to get off at 5:30 a.m. I knew that either the coach attendant or the conductor would make sure that I made my stop.((I had ridden this way multiple times before, but always getting off at Fullerton or else Los Angeles Union Station, in the daylight.)) They are usually good about that. But the monkey mind would not settle down. So when the conductor came down the dimly lit aisle, I was already sitting there with my jacket zipped and my carry-on bag at hand, watching the highway next to us.

You know you are in southern California when the freeway traffic — in the dark, at 5:30 a.m. — is already stop-and-go. The train whistles on past, into the San Bernardino station, a Mission-style edifice four times bigger than it needs to be. (Did the town ever need that station?) Across the tracks is a huge intermodal operation, acres of bright lights and freight containers being stacked onto rail cars.

For a kind of California-gothic touch — think of an abandoned amusement park — the “information booth” on the platform is staffed by this static mannequin, like the old coin-operated “Madame Esmeralda Tells Your Fortune” arcade machines. If you drop in a quarter, will he tell you when the next train is coming? Nope.

On the platform,  a robot voice reminds you that “We care.” It’s about a suicide hotline.

Meanwhile, the pre-dawn students and commuters line the platform, staring at their coffee cups or into the middle distance, until the brightly-lit double-decker Metrolink train rattles in and, after forty minutes, deposits me at Claremont station on its way west to Los Angeles.

The chessboard is at the far left end of the counter.

I’ve done my research: about four blocks away is a coffeehouse that advertises it opens at 6 a.m., and it is now 6:30. I walk into Augie’s Coffee, which sets a high bar for industrial-spartan design, with walls of hexagonal tiles like a 1920s bathroom. The baristas interrupt their chess game (Awww!) to get me a cappuccino and chocolate croissant. Outside, the palm trees are turning from black-and-white and color. I am here.

Next stop: Claremont, California

Call for Papers: American Academy of Religion’s Contemporary Pagan Studies Unit

On By Chas S. Clifton

The deadline is March 2nd. For general information, visit this site.

Call for Proposal

Contemporary Pagan Studies is an interdisciplinary Unit, and we welcome submissions of theoretically and analytically engaged papers and panels relating to modern Paganism and Polytheism, employing scholarly analysis to discuss the topic from any relevant methodology or theoretical orientation. In addition to receiving paper or panel proposals on topics generally in the purview of Contemporary Pagan Studies, we especially welcome proposals that address the following themes:

• Cultural appropriation.
• Contemporary approaches to magic.
• Practices involving ancestor worship or devotion.
• What are the analytical frameworks we use to discuss paranormal or magic phenomena?
• The works of Philip Pullman
• How is the current interest in Heathenry being impacted by trends in popular culture and media? In particular we seek papers exploring the influence of television shows such as “The Vikings”, the rise of interest in genealogy and ancestry.com, internet message boards and meme culture, and Marvel. (Co-sponsored with the Religion and Popular Culture Unit).

Statement of Purpose

This Unit provides a place for scholars interested in pursuing studies in this newly developing and interdisciplinary field and puts them in direct communication with one another in the context of a professional meeting. New scholars are welcomed and supported, while existing scholars are challenged to improve their work and deepen the level of conversation. By liaising with other AAR Program Units, the Unit creates opportunities to examine the place of Pagan religions both historically and within contemporary society and to examine how other religions may intersect with these dynamic and mutable religious communities.