Queering the Runes


Book Description

"This book is a love letter to the runes, the gods, and the people who follow the Nordic path. It also presents an alternative approach to the runes, offering a contemporary, inclusive, nonbinary, and forward-thinking approach. The author gives the traditional meanings of the runes, then helps the reader to 'queer' the runes in their own way, to get to know their energy, and to use them move forward in a journey of self-discovery"--




Queering the Runes


Book Description

Queering the Runes is a contemporary, inclusive, and forward-thinking approach to the runes that focuses on finding queer experience, life, and joy in the Elder Futhark. Siri comes to the runes as a queer, nonbinary reader, and presents a path for reclaiming the ancestral wisdom and mystery of the runes in a way that can provide insight and understanding of their sacred nature for masculine, feminine, and nongendered aspects of self. Written as a love letter to the runes, the gods, and the people who follow the Nordic path, Queering the Runes presents an alternative approach to the runes—one that creates a gentle container for those who want to follow this heathen path. Based on the author’s personal gnosis, as well as deep academic research on runes and Nordic culture, this book explores the root culture of the runes, both in terms of myth and of lived, real folkloric experience, and paves the way for understanding how to work with runes disencumbered from patriarchy and white supremacy. Siri Vincent Plouff presents the traditional meanings of the runes, then helps the reader to queer the runes in their own way. Included are the lore associated with each rune, exercises to apply them to modern life, activities to engage with the runes (layouts, castings, and galdr), and advice on how to use the runes for divination. Throughout, the author provides journal prompts meant to help the reader channel the energy of specific runes, to get to know their energy, as well as to use the runes to help them move forward in a journey of self-discovery. Queering the Runes seeks to blow open perceptions of the runes, exploring them as active, living symbols available to all, as well as the inherent connection with ancestral magic that comes with rune work.




Queering Your Craft


Book Description

“As evident through the pages of this book, Snow holds a vision for the queer aspirant who hears the call to witchery, to find healing, empowerment, strength, and pride through their craft. Through creative and unique journal prompts, introspection, rituals, and spells, Snow achieves this beautifully, and herein lays the perfect guide for the queer witch to stand in their power and stand beside others; truly queering our craft with compassion and pride.” —Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick, and Manifestation Witchcraft has always belonged to the outsiders and outcasts in society, yet so much of the practice enforces and adheres to the same hierarchy we face in the world at large—a hierarchy that isolates and hurts those living beyond society’s binaries and boundaries. While there are books that address magick for resistance and queer myth, until now there has not been one that specifically addresses the practice of queer magick from an LGBTQ+ standpoint. Queering Your Craft combines queer aesthetic and culture (like DIY culture and an emphasis on chosen family over formal covens) with pagan and metaphysical spiritual practice in a way that is commonplace but has not been written about until now. This book covers the personal, the collective, and the political, and how deeply intertwined all three are in a magickal practice for those who are LGBTQ+. In this introduction to witchcraft, Snow presents why/how each concept is important to a queer craft, or how to approach it from a queer mindset. For example, conventional prayer, words, and symbols have always been problematic in a queer universe: How to make them work and still be true to yourself? The bulk of the book is about learning the craft. The latter portion is a grimoire of spells. While accessible to beginning witches, Queering Your Craft provides new and inspiring information for longtime practitioners interested in a pure and personal approach that avoids the baggage of history and stereotype.




Rune Reading Your Life


Book Description

Learn the ancient art of reading runes to jumpstart your journey to self-discovery and fulfillment with this fun, accessible guide featuring removable rune cards and a 30-day practice plan. A beginner-friendly introduction to the 24 Norse runes—from their ancient meanings and modern interpretations to their history and divinatory powers. Discover the wisdom of the runes—24 Norse symbols—to connect with your true self, master the art of being present, and fearlessly welcome your future’s unfolding. Like pulling an angel card, consulting a horoscope, or reading tarot, choosing runes with a question or intention in mind allows us to draw on the divinatory magic of these ancient symbols. We can make space for dialogue with our inner selves, convert intentions into actions, and open ourselves to being more aware and awake than we ever thought possible. This approachable, accessible, and empowering introduction to the runes shows you how. In 3 practical sections, Rune Reading Your Life provides an introduction to the 24 runic symbols and their history, explains their ancient meanings, and reveals their modern interpretations. It guides you on a 30-day transformational rune reading practice, showing you how to interpret and apply runic wisdom to everyday life. Also included are removable rune cards that readers can use to begin their practice immediately.




Postmodern Poetry and Queer Medievalisms: Time Mechanics


Book Description

This volume builds on recent scholarship on contemporary poetry in relation to medieval literature, focusing on postmodern poets who work with the medieval in a variety of ways. Such recent projects invert or “queer” the usual transactional nature of engagements with older forms of literature, in which readers are asked to exchange some small measure of bewilderment at archaic language or forms for a sense of having experienced a medieval text. The poets under consideration in this volume demand that readers grapple with the ways in which we are still “medieval” – in other words, the ways in which the questions posed by their medieval source material still reverberate and hold relevance for today’s world. They do so by challenging the primacy of present over past, toppling the categories of old and new, and suggesting new interpretive frameworks for contemporary and medieval poetry alike.







Queer Theory and Translation Studies


Book Description

This groundbreaking book explores the relevance of queer theory to Translation Studies and of translation to Global Sexuality Studies. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the origins and evolution of queer theory, this book places queer theory and Translation Studies in a productive and mutually interrogating relationship. After framing the discussion of actual and potential interfaces between queer sexuality and queer textuality, the chapters trace the transnational circulation of queer texts, focusing on the place of translation in "gay" anthologies, the packaging of queer life writing for global audiences, and the translation of lyric poetry as a distinct site of queer performativity. Baer analyzes fictional translators in literature and film, the treatment of translation in historical and ethnographic studies of sexual and linguistic others, the work of queer translators, and the reception of queer texts in translation. Including a range of case studies to exemplify key ethical issues relevant to all scholars of global sexuality and postcolonial studies, this book is essential reading for advanced students, scholars, and researchers in Translation Studies, gender and sexuality studies, and related areas.




The Queer Uncanny


Book Description

The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic investigates the diverse roles that the uncanny, as defined by Sigmund Freud, Helene Cixous and other theorists, plays in representing lesbian and male gay sexualities and transgender in a selection of contemporary British, American and Caribbean fiction published 1980-2007. Novels by Christopher Bram, Alan Hollinghurst, Randall Kenan, Shani Mootoo, James Purdy, Sarah Schulman, Ali Smith, Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson and other writers are discussed in the context of queer theory and gothic critical writing. The notion of the uncanny as ‘tangential and to one side’ and ‘appearing on the fringe of something else’, as defined by Cixous and Rosemary Jackson, appropriately evokes the situation of the queer individual living in a minority sub-culture and existing in oblique relation to hetero- normative society. Motifs with uncanny connotations discussed include secrets that society would prefer to remain hidden but come to light, spectral visitation, the emergence of repressed fears and desires, the double, and the homely/ unhomely house. Writers employ them to explore topics integral to queer existence. These include secrets relating to the closet and AIDS; homosexual panic; lesbian social invisibility; transgender subjectivity; the intersection between sexuality and race; the vilification of the queer subject as ‘monstrous Other’; the domestic life of the gay couple destabilised by homophobic influences from the public world; and the heterosexual family disrupted by homosexual secrets from within. The queer recasting of gothic motifs, such as the haunted house, the uncanny city, the grotesque body, and the breakdown of the family due to paternal incest, receives attention.




Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories


Book Description

Eleven tales of the queer fantastic by award-winning author Catherine Lundoff. A bookstore clerk goes on a quest for the Norns while a couple of mercenaries wake up to some big surprises at their favorite inn. Shakespeare’s sister, Judith, forms an alliance with playwright Christopher Marlowe. A witch attempts the wrong love spell and a young prince meets an irresistible monster. Swordswomen, ghosts, the Queen of the Fay, the occasional gentleman of the evening and other unforgettable characters populate these stories rich and strange. Includes the Gaylactic Spectrum Award finalist “At the Roots of the World Tree” as well as several other stories not previously collected.