Material Girls

Season's Greetings Witches! In this most magical of seasons, we are bringing you a bright star from our archives—a holiday special featuring Neale Barnholden! We hope this fun, slightly chaotic episode brings some warmth and joy to your hearts. As this episode comes from an earlier era of Witch Please, there are some things you should know: 1. Recorded back in 2015, this episode is a goo...

We have an episode for you that, in our professional opinion, is very gay . And by gay we mean inviting expansively, radically, resistantly queer readings of a text that is trying very very hard to perform heterosexuality and binary gender! We breeze by the obvious details—like Lockhart's character flaws as coded within his failure to correctly perform masculinity or Harry & Draco's flagrant o...

Greetings Witches! We're so excited to be moving on to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with you! Break out your feminist reading glasses, because we're approaching this text with the tried and true (but also ever evolving) principles of feminist theory. We're returning to the origins of Witch Please and pulling from feminism's foundational texts to guide us through this second Harry Potter...

We've arrived at the end of our journey though Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but before we dig into the Chamber of Secrets, we have a few loose ends to tie up! This episode is full of some brand new segments that help us work through questions, concerns, musings, and future directions for discussion. We bring back a much beloved segment: Granger Danger (!!!!!!!!) in order to give some...

Special guest, Lucia M. Lorenzi, PhD, joins us to unpack trauma theory and helps us understand both the characters in Harry Potter and the world they inhabit as affected by traumatic events. We also explore the narrative form of the text itself—its gaps, inconsistencies, and unreliable narration as sites where trauma lives. Content warning: this episode, broadly, discusses various experiences and...

Dearest Witches, gather round for some lessons in class solidarity! In this episode, we'll discuss the formation of class structure in Western society, the inherent relationship between race and class, and the ways in which the Harry Potter books reach for but don't quite deliver a vision for a cross-class uprising against the powers that be. How do some characters occupy complicated or shifting c...

Snuggle up to your familiars, Witches, because today's episode is all about animals (and critical animal studies!). What distinguishes the "animal" from the "human" and why did Western society come to arrive at that distinction? How does separating humans from their fellow animals work to enforce destructive social, political, and ecological power dynamics? What do we make of the way magical and n...

In this episode, we unravel the many layers of Orientalist tropes that permeate the Harry Potter world. How do some not-so-subtle visual and narrative cues--turbans, hooked noses, and mysterious powers from the "East" tell readers who to fear, dislike, and distrust in these books? How can we heighten our awareness of tropes like these and call out these negative portrayals when we see them? Be sur...

It’s FINALLY HERE! In honor of Hogwarts day, September 1st, we present to you the first day of class you’ve always dreamed of from your two favourite lady scholars: Witch, Please | Ep. 1, The Chosen One.  Our first episode goes back to the very beginning–to the concept of origin stories themselves–to explore how and why Harry Potter fits into a long tradition of “chosen one” narratives. Harry...

BIG NEWS, WITCHES! Through a brand new partnership with  Not Sorry Productions  (the brilliant team behind  Harry Potter and the Sacred Text ), we’re coming back! New and better than ever, which is to say, produced by somebody else and not actively losing money. W O W. Speaking of not losing money, if you’d like to support this reboot, check out our new  Patreon ! Rewards inclu...

WE ARE GETTING ROGUER EVERY EPISODE TBQH So this one’s on time, but witches? It is  pretty. silly.  We sat down, in the same room, with our favourite guy-with-a-film-degree, and we talked about the fan-made prequel film  Voldemort: Origins of the Heir . If you don’t mind spoilers, this  Telegraph review will set the tone for the episode. This episode contains fewer sound effect...

OH MY GOLLY WE ARE SO ROGUE IT IS RUUUUDE. But we are ever grateful for your patience and love, dear listeners! This episode comes to you after much travel and celebration and exhaustion and desperately-needed rest on the part of your hosts. It means the world to us that you’re so chill about the lag since S03E01. (Also, time is just a social construct so, like, what even is a fortnight?) This epi...

OKAY IT IS NOT JUNE ANYMORE SO THIS IS LATE but we’re back with a brand new episode for this, the final season of  Witch, Please : WITCH, PLEASE GONE ROGUE! We’re coming to you straight from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, except that we didn’t want to bring our recorder into the park and then we were too tired to record a proper episode that night and then we got really busy for a coupl...

image credit: Melbourne Writers Festival Well, witches, it’s that time of year again for the first time (technically the second time): time to say “later witches” and actually mean “see you in a few months.” This is our first ever (intentional) Season Finale, but don’t desair! We’ll be back again next summer BIGGER, BOLDER , and SEXIER THAN EVER! You’re gonna love it. So, until then… later witches...

Image of courtesy of Buzzfeed Episode CW: discussion of intimate partner abuse To record this episode, Hannah and Marcelle sat in a bed together for two hours with a singularly chill-less cat and had wildly divergent opinions about a book, sort of  at one another, while the cat purred way too loudly. Does that make it sound fun? TRUST US IT IS. If nothing else, we can promise the horniest epi...

photo credit: @wildflowersyeg Good evening witches and magicians and wizards of all ages! Welcome to this evening’s musical performance of Witch, Please! This fornight has Marcelle “in the field” interviewing Konstantine Kurelias and Amanda Brace, two staff members of the Winspear Centre , about the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s enchanting production of The Music of Harry Potter! As a special trea...

Hey witches! We’re popping into your feed on a Friday to drop the newest episode of Hannah’s new podcast, Secret Feminist Agenda ! We thought this conversation about witchcraft and embracing your inner Hagrid would be  particularly up your alley. Enjoy! This week I’m joined by authors/witches extraordinaire Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman to talk about their forthcoming book  Basic Witche...

By popular demand, we sat down and watched A Very Potter Musical  and boy did we  have some thoughts . Some… thoughts. ANYWAY, if you still like us after this episode and you’d like to chip in to send us to Orlando, you can do that here . If you like the sound of boring self care, check out Hannah Daisy and maybe buy some of her stuff. Don’t forget to listen all the way to the end for ou...

Queue neatly and check your ticket, because we’re heading back to England for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour with special on-location guest Rachelle Saunders (of Episode Sigma  fame). Check out the photos Hannah took on the tour! Don’t forget to listen all the way to the end for our latest #trywitches tournament challenge and the answer to this episode’s #witchpleasetellme question! h...

Howdy partners! Grab yer ten galleon hats and join us as we impose our critical feminism on Calgary, Alberta during the Stamp—er………. that is the Comics and Entertainment Expo that took place this past April. Marcelle hosted a one-witch panel wherein she discussed the rise of fascism in the Harry Potter series. You’ll notice references to slides during the talk; you can view or download them f...

Well hello again, witches! Thanks for tuning in for this week’s  mega super long  but  mega super lovely episode featuring the Foggo Family. An under-slept Marcelle joins the Foggos as they discuss what the Harry Potter series and the podcast  Witch, Please mean to them as a family and as fans. ***** OH AND MEGA SUPER APOLOGIES FOR THE AUDIO SHENANIGANS IN THIS E...

Welcome back, witches! We sure have missed you, and we’re excited to get started on Season 2 (new numbering system TBA). The focus of this season will be the Harry Potter fandom, and Hannah kicked things off by attending  Harry Potter and the Cursed Child  in London with HP megafan, author, and journalist Anna James . Join us for a conversation about the liveness of theatre, three-p...

Image from page 375 of “The Haverfordian, Vols. 26-27, 1904-05” (1905) Hey witches! We're dropping back into your feed momentarily to let you know about three upcoming events! On Sunday, April 23, at 1pm   UPDATE: 3:30PM , Hannah and previous guest Rachelle Saunders will be hosting a meet-up at the Parcel Yard in King's Cross. Come hang out! On Sunday, April 30, at 1:30pm, Marcelle (and the robot...

Image courtesy of Huffington Post Hold onto your hard drives, witches, because we have an announcement for you! We've been thinking over the past months about ways to make  Witch, Please sustainable. After two years of fortnightly episodes, we're worried about fizzling out over the next year. We don't want  to fizzle out, dear witches, because hanging out with you is too much fun. And so we have a...

HAPPY 2017, WITCHES! We don’t believe in resolutions because they are a neoliberal conceit intended to keep you politically docile by convincing you that your very being is a perfectable project. But we do  believe in trying to educate yourself every damn day, and in that spirit, this minisode is accompanied by some recommended readings. Enjoy! Content Warning for this episode: disc...