Queer Ecology and The Supernatural

The IAS presents a Research Spotlight for 2026-27, Queer Ecology and The Supernatural, which is led by Dr Carina Brand (SDCA) & James Chantry (SDCA).

We are inviting the two fellows to contribute to the two-day symposium Queer Ecology and The Supernatural, which will be hosted at Loughborough Campus. This symposium will be accompanied by an exhibition and performances and screenings that include artists and practitioners from the local community. This symposium will consider the connections and intersections of queerness, feminism, identity, the supernatural and ecology. Tracing the roots of historical politics, statecraft and resistance to societal expectations through the corporeal, spiritual and divergent communities.

Witchcraft and pagan activities as surveyed by Arthur Evans in Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture (1978), established sex and the heretical supernatural as a defiance of the hegemonic order, of a feudal and ultimately capitalist society. Queer human ecologies and land ecologies are intrinsically linked to tales, coded or otherwise, of magical creatures in folklore, warnings to the curious and speculative visions of, and beyond, environmental change Jack Halberstam in Wild Things – The Disorder of Desire (2020), delivers an alternative vision of history, tracing wildness and sexuality outside of the established and structured order.

Queer activist groups such as The Radical Faeries, active since 1979 have provided contemporary cognisance of queer and feminist connections to ecology-based care and defiance. Pagan, witch and shaman thought inherently worships nature, the elements, land and ecology as we term it today. Large swathes of new covens, pagan and folk based groups of queer and feminist eco-driven practitioners have arisen. Generally, as a population exploration of pagan, witch and folk based rituals in specific geographical locations has surged, and census data confirms up to 30% increases in people identifying as following Paganism, Witchcraft, Druidism and Shamanism.

Featuring confirmed IAS Visiting Fellows - 

Events and Booking Links

This Research Spotlight will take place during the week commencing 14th September 2026. The event programme is currently being finalised, once complete, we will add further details and booking links here.