Black Witches in Contemporary American Culture

This course requires successful research into the complex history of Afro-religious traditions in the US and the ways in which various terms such as “voodoo” and associated animal sacrifice are deployed politically to block civil rights both in the Abolitionist Era and continuing through the 20th and 21st centuries, expressed as recently as former President Trump’s invocation of Haitian immigrants as interlopers who are “eating the pets” in Springfield, OH in September, 2024. Learning this history provides a more nuanced understanding of the political discourse of the current moment and asks students to think creatively about how to interject competing narratives. 

Historically and narratively, the witch has been used to mark culturally marginalized women as outside the acceptable bounds of Western society. White women in this role are often depicted as powerful in their knowledge of  “black” or “white magic,” and although outside the normative bounds, might be socially acceptable depending on their use of their power.  When Black women are depicted as witches, they are almost exclusively the villain and the threat of voodoo, hoodoo, or conjure, if not explicitly expressed, haunts the borders of the narrative. This reflects the political history of voodoo in the American imaginary as a “pact with the devil” that enslaved Haitians made in order to overthrow their colonizers, becoming the first free Black nation in the West. From that worldview, which continues to impact anti-Haitian rhetoric today, any association with voodoo is an expression of evil.

However, increasingly Black women, femmes, and folx look outside of Christianity to find powerful, community-minded, norm-breaking women and are interested in Afro-religiosity, including syncretic religions like Vodou and Santeria or folk traditions like Hoodoo and Conjure, as a site for identity-building, healing, and social liberation. This interest has been reflected in popular culture via an explosion of television, film, and literature about Black witches and conjurers, be they aimed at tweens, teens, or adults, over the last fifteen years. This trend overlaps with the growth of Afrofuturism as a space for Black science fiction and fantasy to envision new approaches to social justice and the desire to see centered Black voices in the past, present, and the future. As a result, games that include Afro-religious traditions and conjure written by Black and non-Black game designers have emerged alongside other expressions in popular culture.

This interdisciplinary cultural studies course examines the social narratives and representations of Black witches in television, literature, and gaming in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As an active-learning course, students will both have hands-on gaming experience and build a game that reflects Afro-religious themes with careful attention to cultural appropriation and representation.