Join the Weird Fictions Research Group for an in-person lecture and discussion by
Joanna Kaniewska
(University of Warsaw)

Witches in American Popular Music

Tuesday, December 6, 2022
at 4:45 pm
room 116

This event is a part of the Weird Music Vol 2. series organized by the Weird Fictions Research Group members and their invited guests.

This is an in-person event, so you can get 3 OZN points for participating.

Where?

American Studies Center, room 116
al. Niepodległości 22, Warszawa

FACEBOOK EVENT

What?

The popularity of the witch archetype in popular culture of the 20th and 21st centuries is undeniable. Rebellious and powerful, witches are everywhere: in books, comic books, movies, TV shows… and perhaps most importantly, in the social media spaces, defined by such hashtags as #witchtok or #witchesofinstagram. What about music, a medium often taken for granted in the contemporary world?

During the first part of the event, I will try to map the presence of witches in American music. I will start from the 1960s and go toward today, presenting several inspiring musicians and their works. The second part of the event will belong to YOU. Do you know a “music witch” I have not mentioned? Please, tell me! Do you want to share an interesting fact or a personal experience with the artists I presented? Go for it! Or maybe you envision “music witches” in a completely different way? Let’s discuss it! We will also try to look at the trends on our “timeline of music witches,” look for their common traits and ponder what they say about the archetype of the witch… or the women. Or the rebellion.

Who?

Joanna (Asia) Kaniewska is a subtitler by day and an independent researcher by night. She graduated from University of Warsaw with MA in Japanese Studies and American Studies and is currently working towards enrolling in the Doctoral School of Humanities. She’s been a part of Weird Fictions Research Group since its very beginnings in 2018. Her academic interests include popular music, Japanese and American popular culture, science fiction, and weird studies. Sometimes, she writes about them on her blog “dziewiętnaście czwartych” (“nineteen fourths”) or talks about them in her radio show “dancing in dystopia.”

Year 2024/2025

January 23: „I’m weird. I’m a weirdo.” The Allure of Unhinged Teen Television Drama Series Riverdale (2017-2023)

January 20, 2025

Join us for the second Weird TV lecture in 2025! Teen TV programming by The CW Television Network in the last 20 years has been a wildly successful blend of soap opera, generational saga, crime, the paranormal, and erotica. This paper argues that the drama series Riverdale (2017-2023) is the last show of this kind due to its week-to-week broadcasting format, as well as its convoluted, absurd, weird, and addictive storytelling. In the span of 6 years and 7 seasons, Riverdale explored various themes and topics: serial killers, occultism, time traveling, parallel universes, superpowers, folk tales, witchcraft, and many, many more. On a purely visual level, the show does take its inspiration from the grand tradition of horror/thriller genre storytelling, BUT is it camp, pastiche, or pure kitsch? This paper attempts to situate Riverdale within a broader context of both cult cinema/TV, and teen film studies. Finally, Riverdale’s weirdness and ridiculousness would be nothing without the show’s internet discourse, fandom, and critical reception, which are part of this analysis.

Year 2024/2025

January 21: “Women Against the Law” – Screening and Discussion of Estado de Proibição!

January 20, 2025

Join us for our first 2025 event, “Women Against the Law” – Screening and discussion of Estado de Proibição!” The screening and discussion will be conducted by doctoral student Thany Sacnhes. Estado de Proibição shares the stories of women who break the law to care for their children and of those who have lost their children to state violence connected to drug prohibition. The film, created by Plataforma Brasileira de Política de Drogas in collaboration with Panamá Filmes and supported by the Open Society Foundations, was filmed in São Paulo, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro. It aims to raise public awareness of the consequences of drug prohibition, which affect both drug users and non-users. The documentary highlights the intersections between the social and therapeutic use of drugs and examines how prohibitionist policies lead to the criminalization of communities and increased police violence.

American Studies Colloquium Series

January 16: Painting in Total Darkness: Blindness as the Medium for Vision

January 16, 2025

We are delighted to invite you to the last lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2024/2025 Fall semester! Touching on various processes, materials, histories, and methodologies of making, Stephen Proski’s lecture will show how blindness can function as a unique lens of perception, particularly as it relates to the expanded field of painting.

Year 2024/2025

January 9: It’s a True Story – It Happened to a Friend of a Friend (online)’: Urban Legends and Television in the Contemporary Era

January 9, 2025

Join us for the first Weird TV lecture in 2025! Whether centering talk programming, news television, or fictionalised accounts, urban legends nest themselves in the minds of viewers, propagating, and ultimately regressively metamorphosing & returning to oral tradition, shared from viewer to non-viewer to non-viewer, so on and so forth. The oral links which are core to the Urban Legend are recreated anew. While found near universally across televisual programming, our interest rests in the anthology format television has adopted. The stories told are familiar, but not entirely static. The narrative transaction shifts and subsumes itself to the socio-cultural changes. Each technological revolution in communication ripples and renders the narrativization of urban legends transposed onto television. It is in this vein that we will discuss the conceptualisation of the Urban Legend, the televisual forms it has taken, and its existence within the internet era.

American Studies Colloquium Series

December 19: Between The Mundane and the Heroic: Vietnamese Presence in State Socialist Poland

December 19, 2024

We are delighted to invite you to the fifth lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2024/2025 Fall semester! This talk will examine the depictions of the (North) Vietnamese as freedom fighters within the context of the state socialist public sphere and the everyday life of Vietnamese students in Poland across generations. From idealized wartime reportages to mixed-race couples, the Vietnamese presence was marked by a multifaceted experience of adaptation, challenges, opportunities, and dynamic, interactive bonds with Polish society. This history continues to exert a profound influence on the contemporary Vietnamese diaspora and Polish-Vietnamese relationships.