From Shakespeare’s trio in Macbeth to modern-day Halloween costumes, witches have occupied our imaginations for centuries. Much of what we associate with witchcraft has been the result of myth-making and stereotypes, but where do these stories come from? And why do they continue to inform the concept of “witch” in the popular imagination? 

Beginning with the witch hunts of the early 15th century, Professor Jennifer McNabb takes you on an eye-opening exploration of witchcraft and superstition in Witchcraft in the Western Tradition. In these 10 lectures, you will better understand where many of our most indelible images of witchcraft come from and how the religious pursuit of witches across Europe and into the Americas in the early modern period spread fear and violence like a contagion, for generations.

As you examine the impact of witchcraft hysteria, you will also come to better understand the cultural, religious, economic, social, and other factors that contributed to the witch hunts that caught hundreds of thousands of people in their wake. How did social unrest and competition for resources fuel persecution? Why were women targeted so much more than men? How much of the hysteria surrounding witchcraft was real fear, and how much of it was manufactured by those acting in their own self-interest? As you search for the answers to these questions and more, you will meet perpetrators and victims, true believers and opportunists, the accusers and the accused. And, while these events can feel rooted in the distant past, you will also see how superstition and fear can continue to operate in our modern world, from Nazi witch hunts in the 1930s to the “satanic panic” of the 1980s - and even in our own contemporary response to crisis events.