Well, Witches, we've reached the end of another book together. We spend this episode, among other things, revisiting the tragic squandering of Hermione's talent and expertise as part of the adventure squad, detailing Gilderoy Lockharts' luscious wardrobe and its implications, tearing up at another round of Marcelle's Devastating Fun Facts from the Harry Potter World, and digging deeper into the Weasley's class status and other lingering questions we have about the series. Be sure to follow Witch...
Mar 02, 2021•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Beloved bookish witches, join us for a discussion of print culture as it appears in the wizarding world. We'll unpack our own biases and beliefs about the significance of books as physical objects and how capitalism and commodification created the sentimental, coveted idea of the book many of us hold in our hearts. We will page through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in search of printed matter and the ways it circulates in wizarding society, how it intersects with notions of class and i...
Feb 16, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week we've brought together the Who's Who of the Wizarding World for the event of the season you won't want to miss – an episode on Celebrity Studies! Notable guests include the winner of Witch Weekly 's Most Charming Smile Award (five times in a row!) and Poor Famous Harry Potter, who can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page. With a little help from Colin Creevey's camera, we focus our critical lens on how celebrity is constructed in the Wizarding World and our own, what...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Special guest, Jes Battis PhD, joins us to unpack the history of disability studies and help us understand both the characters in Harry Potter and the world they inhabit as affected by ableism. As mentioned in the episode, Jes wrote a book on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and chosen family! You can check it out here . Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of the episode through a review on Apple Podcasts. As always, you can join our Pat...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Beware, Witches! Deep in the belly of a dark and chilly castle lurks an abundance of secrets! In case you hadn't noticed, the Harry Potter books are chocked full of Gothic literary devices. Unraveling the mysteries of the Hogwarts castle and the cast of characters inside reveals new insights about the concepts of monstrosity, disgust, and the boundaries of social acceptability. Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of the episode t...
Jan 05, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast 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 goofy mix of genuine and deeply ironic commentary. For example, our remarks about The Fellowship ...
Dec 22, 2020•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 obsession with each other—and into some of this text's more subversive queer potentials. This episode...
Dec 08, 2020•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 installment (which, by the way, contains several issues—including: parental neglect and...
Nov 24, 2020•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 airtime to the greatest witch of her age. We spend some time unpacking a metaphorical suitcase full ...
Nov 10, 2020•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 consequences of trauma throughout. Of particular note are discussions around child abuse and neglect...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 class positions? What would it take for Harry, or other characters of privilege to be true class trai...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 non-magical creatures (and the humans who care for them, commune with them, or use them) are portraye...
Sep 29, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of ...
Sep 15, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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, we learn, is a very special boy in all the ways English literature tells us special boys ought to ...
Sep 01, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 include unedited audio from the first season, bonus interviews, Q&As, and movie watch-alongs! Enjoy o...
Aug 24, 2020•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 effects than usual because it was too hard to fit them in between all the laughter. It also contains an ab...
Sep 04, 2018•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 episode contains the audio recoding from Marcelle’s keynote lecture at the 86th Annual ABQLA Conference...
Aug 21, 2018•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 couple of months but LISTEN. It’s a great episode. Just trust us, okay? Mega extra special thanks to Juli...
Jul 02, 2018•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 xoxo. http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/S02E08_WitchPleaseAndTheMelbourneWritersFe...
Sep 26, 2017•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 episode we’ve ever delivered, as we sit down to talk about Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On and hash&nbs...
Sep 11, 2017•2 hr 49 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 treat, you’ll also hear Marcelle debrief the performance with longtime friend and basically brother Step...
Aug 29, 2017•2 hr 50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Witches ( preorder it here! ). If you’re in the New York area, you can head to the launch at The Astoria B...
Aug 25, 2017•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 our latest #trywitches tournament challenge and the answer to this episode’s #witchpleasetellme&n...
Aug 14, 2017•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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! http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Witch-Please-and-the-Stunning-Studio-Tour.mp3Downl...
Aug 01, 2017•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 from the links below 🙂 In keeping with our shiny new format, Hannah and Marcelle cap off the episode...
Jul 18, 2017•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 EPISODE. IT IS 50% TOO LITTLE SLEEP 50% I FORGET HOW TO PODCAST ***** In keeping with our seasonal fo...
Jul 04, 2017•2 hr 44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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-piece suits, and harpsichords! After Marcelle and Hannah are done catching up, this episode gets pret...
Jun 19, 2017•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 of our hearts!) will be giving a talk at the Calgary Expo on “Harry Potter and Social Justice” in room...
Apr 16, 2017•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 arrived at: A PLAN. Proudly announcing: Witch, Please 2.0 , this time with seasons, and maybe an even m...
Jan 31, 2017•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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: discussion of racialized violence and murder. Fantastic Beasts is Not So Fantastic With Diversity Tilda ...
Jan 17, 2017•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
