Manifesting the Manifesto: The Call for a Feminist Tarot
Publication information:
Abstract
My paper focuses on one of the first texts that made a demand for a feminist tarot in America: Billie Potts’ “A New Women’s Tarot” (1978). My analysis identifies creative choices within this pamphlet that came to guide the feminist and woman-centred decks that would follow. Its demand for a feminist tarot might be read as a proto-manifesto that contributed to the emergence of an entirely new thealogical materiality of the tarot. The paper will trace how at this particular moment in Second Wave Feminism, tarot became a spiritual tool for crafting solidarities, a sense of community and belonging within those on the periphery of patriarchy. While focusing on this particular moment, I will also briefly gesture towards how this feminist repurposing of the tarot in the late twentieth century, inaugurated future possibilities for a spiritual, visual, and political recalibration of the tarot by a range of communities.
Presenter Biography
A. P. Payal is an academic, who also creates comics and illustrations. Her academic work has been published in various journals and books. She has received various scholarships, grants, and prizes for her artistic and academic work. She also teaches literature to undergraduate students at Jesus and Mary College, DU.
Affiliation: Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi