Category Archives: exhibitions

Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic: this looks a fabulous place and I’ll have to visit it one day.

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Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter, RWA, Bristol, 10 Dec 16 – 19 Mar 17

Angela Carter is a key figure in the OGOM Project (as you might guess from the many postings here about her). Her explorations of the marvellous and the fabulous, her intertextuality and play with genres, her concerns with the metamorphoses … Continue reading

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Tessa Farmer’s fairy taxidermy

A piece on Tessa Farmer’s grotesquely Gothic tableaux of some very unpleasant fairies, constructed from insect parts. I find this fascinating and darkly humorous–but very creepy!

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Monkey Tales: Apes and Monkeys in Asian Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 14 Jun 2016-30 Oct 2016

Number one of Sam’s favourite shapeshifters is Monkey, the character from the Chinese epic Journey to the West which was made into a children’s TV series in Japan in the 1970s. By an uncanny coincidence, 2016 is the Year of … Continue reading

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Shakespeare, Hobgoblins and the Never Never

Following my post on Gothic Shakespeare I wanted to mention the British Library’s mesmerizing show Shakespeare in Ten Acts  There are over 200 rare and unique items on display including the only surviving play-script in Shakespeare’s handwriting. Visitors are encouraged … Continue reading

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Bram Stoker: The Disappearing Vampire at Dublin Writer’s Museum

When I found myself in Ireland over Easter I headed to the Dublin Writer’s Museum to look for material on Bram Stoker. The museum presents ‘the literary heritage left by writers of the past’ and it was established ‘to promote interest, … Continue reading

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‘Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble’: Witches, Magic and Demons @TheJohnRylands

I have been blogging quite a lot lately about witches and magic books. I wrote on the Renaissance magician John Dee in ‘It’s a kind of Magic’ and offered some critical thoughts on ‘Sexualising the Witch’ in response to recent … Continue reading

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It’s A Kind of Magic: The Books of Renaissance Magician John Dee Go On Display

One of the courses I was teaching last semester was Renaissance Literature and the most enjoyable part was the exploration of magic on stage from Dr Faustus to The Tempest and the magical statue scene in A Winter’s Tale. The … Continue reading

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Sexualising the Witch: Magic, Witches & Devils #jrlmagic

The majority of convicted witches in early modern Europe were women, and two female stereotypes became particularly powerful: the alluring young woman, and the dried-up old ‘hag’. Regardless of age, female witches were believed to be in sexual thrall to … Continue reading

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Fairy Tale Fashion at the FIT, NY

This is another post for my transatlantic friends (and one which I am bitterly jealous about and on which I have previously blogged). The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, are hosting an exhibition on Fairy Tale Fashion (15 January – … Continue reading

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