Matteo Duni, Matteo Al Kalak, and Xenia von Tippelskirch (eds.), Genesis. XIX/1 (2020): Immaginare la stregoneria, Rom: Viella, 2020.

To this day, the myth of the witch has proved to be such a powerful motif, that feminist and Lgtbq movements, among others, have used it for their campaigns. However, as to the historical forms of witchcraft imaginaries, scholars have repeatedly warned against overly ideological interpretations. They have stressed, in particular, that in order to understand past imaginaries, semantic forms and intertextual connections need to be investigated in depth, and the links between bodily phenomena and socio-cultural interpretations have to be analysed in their respective historical contexts. With such caveats in mind, it is worth to take a fresh look at the gendered dimensions of historical witch imaginaries. The case-studies in this thematic issue of "Genesis" propose to re-read literary texts of the Italian Renaissance in search of traces of the witch myth, to reconsider the motif of animal-human metamorphosis and, finally, to uncover the cultural and colonial shortcomings of simplistic interpretations of witchcraft in the African context.