On the threshold of one's own skin:

the witch as a monstrous body in the work of Robert Eggers

Authors

  • Naê Della'Parma Prieto Salatim Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas
  • Paulo Augusto de Souza Nogueira Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.1982-6605.2026v23n1.76685

Abstract

This article investigates the figure of the witch as a monstrous body through Robert Eggers' film "The Witch" (2016), as well as the implications of her becoming-monster, contextualizing it within the emerging wave of post-horror as a subgenre of horror cinema. The study proposes an analysis of the witch's monstrous body as a cultural body, catalyzing issues of economics, gender, sexuality, and religion. The methodology is qualitative and bibliographic. The analysis draws particularly on Jeffrey Cohen's theory of the monstrous and Edgar Morin's understanding of cinema as a projection of the cultural imaginary. To understand the phenomenon of witchcraft, authors such as Jeffrey Russell, Brooks Alexander, and Silvia Federici were evoked. To understand themes such as animality and other-than-human relationships, we utilize Anna Tsing's multispecies theory. This article explores Thomasin's becoming-monster as a crossing of the thresholds between cultural natures, grounded in the history of witchcraft and the socioeconomic transformations of New England.

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Author Biography

Paulo Augusto de Souza Nogueira, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas

Doutor em Teologia pela Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Estágio pós-doutoral pelo NEE Unicamp. Professor pesquisador PPG Ciências da Religião na PUC Campinas, Bolsista Produtividade CNPq. 

Published

2026-01-29

How to Cite

PRIETO SALATIM, Naê Della’Parma; DE SOUZA NOGUEIRA, Paulo Augusto. On the threshold of one’s own skin: : the witch as a monstrous body in the work of Robert Eggers. Religare, [S. l.], v. 23, n. 1, 2026. DOI: 10.22478/ufpb.1982-6605.2026v23n1.76685. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufpb.br/index.php/religare/article/view/76685. Acesso em: 16 jul. 2026.

Issue

Section

Artigos Nacionais