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Marion Gibson

Biography

Marion Gibson

Marion Gibson is Professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of seven academic books on witches in history and literature: READING WITCHCRAFT; POSSESSION, PURITANISM, AND PRINT; WITCHCRAFT MYTHS IN AMERICAN CULTURE; IMAGINING THE PAGAN PAST; REDISCOVERING RENAISSANCE WITCHCRAFT; WITCHCRAFT: The Basics; and, with Jo Esra, SHAKESPEARE'S DEMONOLOGY. Marion has also edited five books for publishers such as Routledge and Ashgate, published around 20 chapters and articles, and she is General Editor of the series Elements in Magic for Cambridge University Press. WITCHCRAFT: A History in Thirteen Trials is her most recent work.

Marion Gibson

Books by Marion Gibson

Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
by Marion Gibson - History, Nonfiction

WITCHCRAFT is a dramatic journey through 13 witch trials across history, some famous --- like the Salem witch trials --- and some lesser-known: on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929, where a magical healer was labelled a “witch”; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, WITCHCRAFT takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance.