Enter a Black Dog: Witchcraft as Racecraft in The Witch of Edmonton.

This article analyzes the anti-Black racism that undergirds the character of Dog in Thomas Dekker, William Rowley, and John Ford's true-crime play The Witch of Edmonton (1621). By situating Dog in the intersecting traditions of Black devils in witchcraft literature and Black characters on the early...

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Publicado en:Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 53 - 82
Autor principal: Korell, Hannah
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: University of Pennsylvania Press Fall2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Enter a Black Dog: Witchcraft as Racecraft in The Witch of Edmonton.
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        au: Korell, Hannah
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        Anti-Black racism
        Witchcraft
        Blackface
        Race
        Literary characters
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          Anti-Black racism
          Witchcraft
          Blackface
          Race
          Literary characters
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        blackface
        demonology
        devil
        early modern drama
        Elizabeth Sawyer
        gender
        race
        The Witch of Edmonton
        theatre
        witchcraft
      ab: This article analyzes the anti-Black racism that undergirds the character of Dog in Thomas Dekker, William Rowley, and John Ford's true-crime play The Witch of Edmonton (1621). By situating Dog in the intersecting traditions of Black devils in witchcraft literature and Black characters on the early modern stage, this article argues that the play uses Dog's Blackness to situate Mother Sawyer's turn to witchcraft as an act of apostasy. Witchcraft thus functions as a form of racecraft, a means through which the play actively constructs semantic associations between Blackness and evil and between whiteness and godliness. Ultimately, this article concludes with a call for scholars, theater reviewers, and theatrical practitioners not to reproduce The Witch of Edmonton 's racial politics in their own engagement with the play. This article analyzes the anti-Black racism that undergirds the character of Dog in Thomas Dekker, William Rowley, and John Ford's true-crime play The Witch of Edmonton (1621). By situating Dog in the intersecting traditions of Black devils in witchcraft literature and Black characters on the early modern stage, this article argues that the play uses Dog's Blackness to situate Mother Sawyer's turn to witchcraft as an act of apostasy. Witchcraft thus functions as a form of racecraft, a means through which the play actively constructs semantic associations between Blackness and evil and between whiteness and godliness. Ultimately, this article concludes with a call for scholars, theater reviewers, and theatrical practitioners not to reproduce The Witch of Edmonton's racial politics in their own engagement with the play.
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