When the Witch Becomes the Hunter: Illustrating Shared Characteristics of Contemporary United States Politics and the European Witch Hunts
Faculty Mentor Information
Dr. Jonathan Fardy, Idaho State University
Presentation Date
7-15-2026
Abstract
Through an interdisciplinary art practice of bookmaking, printmaking, and drawing, my thesis project explores how power dynamics in contemporary United States politics look like the European witch hunts. In a dialectical exercise, I invert the witch hunt and create artworks to function as trials of current events. Emergent themes that Americans share with this historical period include the collaboration of state and religious influences, “othered” folks and women losing autonomy, and the search for and destruction of secret knowledge.
Informed by this research, I work with the book as a physical manifestation of these power dynamics. It is not only a symbol for attaining knowledge or upward class mobility, but for how a public engages with ideas, objects, and institutions broadly. Why is the book simultaneously worshipped and vilified, circulated and banned, archived and burned? A society’s relationship to the book reveals that society’s relationship to power. This research explores what happens when this relationship is destabilized and how art plays a role in this process.
I will present the full art exhibition and defend my research in Spring 2027 to earn my Honors Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art with minors in art history and history.
When the Witch Becomes the Hunter: Illustrating Shared Characteristics of Contemporary United States Politics and the European Witch Hunts
Through an interdisciplinary art practice of bookmaking, printmaking, and drawing, my thesis project explores how power dynamics in contemporary United States politics look like the European witch hunts. In a dialectical exercise, I invert the witch hunt and create artworks to function as trials of current events. Emergent themes that Americans share with this historical period include the collaboration of state and religious influences, “othered” folks and women losing autonomy, and the search for and destruction of secret knowledge.
Informed by this research, I work with the book as a physical manifestation of these power dynamics. It is not only a symbol for attaining knowledge or upward class mobility, but for how a public engages with ideas, objects, and institutions broadly. Why is the book simultaneously worshipped and vilified, circulated and banned, archived and burned? A society’s relationship to the book reveals that society’s relationship to power. This research explores what happens when this relationship is destabilized and how art plays a role in this process.
I will present the full art exhibition and defend my research in Spring 2027 to earn my Honors Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art with minors in art history and history.