This is a (Halloween special!) bonus episode that explores the image of Witches in Art, as told by Professor Lyndal Roper! \n\nWhat is a witch? Where does it stem from? Why is she so often an old woman, who is harmful and evil? How did this perpetuate the way women were treated in history? What is a witch today?\n\nRoper, a regius professor of History at the University Oxford, is one of the global experts on the history of witchcraft. \n\nShe is the author of:\n\nWitch Craze, that examines in-depth the trials of women accused of witchcraft, and argued that the craze sprang from a collective fantasy, of which many were older, infertile women who were accused of harming infants and destroying fertility in the natural and human world: https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300119831/\n\nThe Witch in the Western Imagination, which looks at the many different visualisations of witches, which in Germany found its \u201cfullest exploration\u201d thanks to the invention in the late 15th century, which in a way, changed the distribution of art forever: https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4260/\n\nAnd many more! \n\n--\n\nTHIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:\n\nhttps://www.famm.com/en/\nhttps://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037\n\nFollow us:\nKaty Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nSound editing by Nada Smiljanic\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield