Blog post #5: Deborah Harkness

Deborah Harkness is an author, scholar and professor whose work, life and ethics represent many feminist tenets. A professor at USC, her expertise in academia focuses on history and science, the history of women, and magic as part of her academic arsenal. Academia is a space that's always been male-dominated, but Harkness holds her own, with 17 honors and awards listed in her academic credentials, including the Fulbright Award and a recognition  as one of 175 Women of Influence in 2012-2013.

Author Deborah Harkness (photo from deborahharkness.com)

As an author of fiction, her writing not only blends her academic prowess, but she has deftly weaved in her own voice of reason, and her feminist views into the story. The All Souls Trilogy, comprised of A Discovery of Witches (2011), Shadow of Night (2012), and The Book Of Life (2014), tells of the story of witch Diana Bishop, who has kept her heritage a secret due to the shame and infamy of her ancestral lineage, based on the real-life Bridget Bishop, who was hanged for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. Diana as witch is, “hiding in plain sight” as they say in the novels. Diana happens upon a lost and coveted manuscript, Ashmole 782 (a real-life lost manuscript), and the sequence of events that follow propels her into a forbidden relationship with vampire Matthew Clairmont and together, they defy the odds in search of the missing manuscript, and of their own truths. Diana's need to blend in stems from fear, and is a survival strategy, which is a theme mentioned in the reading Gender Outlaws (Bornstein, Bergman, 2010). The reading talks about how binary structures are used as walls to prevent others from learning more about them, and be judged by them, ever fearful of a "culture that would otherwise call them freaks."

Race, sex, gender and class are not issues which cause any oppression in her characters. Rather, it is the issue of prejudice amongst species, of lineage purity, and the mixing among vampires, witches and daemons species that pose trials and challenges which her characters have to wrestle with. These issues are very much relatable and relevant in today's times, when many factions in society are throwing out vitriolic hatred amongst minorities and oppressed people in our own communities. Taboos in her stories lie in species intermingling, and whether or not it is a good means to safeguard their species from dying out.

Excerpt from a Q&A with the author on the Goodreads website

Harkness covers a variety of topics in her stories, including how misogynistic beliefs from centuries past continue to exist in present day. She enfolds the feminist concepts of acceptance, inclusion, mercy and justice as part of the core values of her storyline. We witness the effects of prejudice on villains and victims in her stories, and their progression of growth (or demise) based on the choices her characters make. In her novels, we also see how ignorance can play a part in a person’s life, and how an open mind can bring change and transformation.

The All Souls Trilogy have all consistently been on The New York Times Bestsellers List.

With the TV adaptation heading to the US, it is possible to see these titles top the charts again.

I have attended gatherings related to this book series. where Harkness speaks of how organic her writing process has been, and how bits of her own life journey and values are reflected in her novels. We see her protagonist Diana as a historian (like Harkness herself), raised by her Aunt Sarah with her partner Emily Mather. In Diana, Harkness has harnessed her knowledge of
the antiquities, alchemy, science, religion, and culture into the basic structure of her stories. The Dianic Feminist  spirituality is ever present in her storyline, where womanhood, and female strengths and traditions are kept sacred. The companion book, “The World of All Souls,” explains that “Dianic Wicca, developed in the 1970s, focuses on the worship of one goddess, with an emphasis on feminism.” (Harkness, 2018).

The author and the blogger. With
Harkness (left) at a gathering in 2018.

Although the novels do have gays and lesbians in the storyline, the TV adaptation was marketed as a gay/lesbian show in many social media sites, as sisterhood and witches are core elements in her storyline, equated to lesbianism in some circles. This reminded me of Clark’s Commodity Lesbianism, where a “gay window advertising” can entice both straight and gay markets and how “multiple interpretations” help propel the show to a larger and wider audience. As Clark articulates, “While lesbians find pleasure (and even validation) in that which is both accessible and unarticulated, the advertising industry is playing upon a material and ideological tension that simultaneously appropriates aspects of lesbian subculture and positions lesbian reading practices in relation to consumerism.”(147). 

Harkness practices what she preaches. Her fan sites and groups whom she often interacts with are comprised of a variety of people from many backgrounds, beliefs and lifestyles, of which Harkness demands total respect of everyone’s viewpoints, where courtesy, kindness, and open mind are part of the "rules." Through the novels, her fans have mobilized and helped support a women-centered organization, practicing the very same feminist values which her stories encapsulate. This is one feminist and novelist whose life and work have influenced my own writing, and my life.

References:

• Bobbie. “Dianic Tradition Herstory.” Dianic, 31 Dec. 2017, dianic.org/dianic-tradition-herstory/.
• Bornstein, K. and S.B. Bergman. Gender Outlaws. 2010. Printed handout.
• Clark, Danae. "Commodity Lesbianism." Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian and Queer Essays in        Popular Culture. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1995, 142 - 151.
• “Bridget Bishop: Witch or Easy Target?” History of Massachusetts, historyofmassachusetts.org/bridget-bishop-witch-or-easy-target/.
• deborahharkness.com