'Satanism as a Feminist Strategy in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes (1926)', Per Faxneld

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s novel Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman (1926) was a grand success when first published, and remains a classic of feminist fantastic fiction. It tells the tale of the spinster Laura “Lolly” Willowes, who ends up becoming a witch liberated and empowered by Satan. Christianity is depicted as a central pillar of patriarchy, while nature is held up as Satan’s feminine realm where he can offer immunity from the pressures of a male-dominated society. This talk situates the novel in a longer tradition of ”Satanic feminism”, as well as relate it to the feminist struggles of its specific period. It demonstrates how Warner drew on contemporary semi-scholarly understandings of witch cults, specifically those formulated by Egyptologist Margaret Murray, but also diverged from them in several ways.
Per Faxneld is senior lecturer in Study of Religions at Södertörn University, Stockholm. In 2014, he obtained his PhD in History of Religions at Stockholm University, with a thesis (Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture) that was subsequently awarded the Donner Institute Prize for Excellent Research into Religion (and republished by Oxford University Press in 2017). He has written extensively on esotericism in exhibition catalogues, academic journals and books issued by for example Palgrave Macmillan, Yale University Press, Routledge, Equinox, Ashgate, Acumen and Brill . A co-organiser of 10 international conferences, Faxneld has also presented papers at more than 30 such events. Most of his writing has focused on nineteenth-century esotericism, in particular the relationship between literature, visual art, politics and esotericism during this period.

[@nileshaubeeluck9035]

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[@lascarachialexandru7745]

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[@lascarachialexandru7745]

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[@henriettahall9731]

Surely it is circumspect that a man critiques this? I couldn't listen beyond the first seconds of this. Such a pity.

[@phoebehildegard]

i cringed at first but then i listened and it was actually really cool