A Never-ending Braid: Witch bodies in Indian fiction and popular culture

我打算写一部小说，恢复当代印度被认定为女巫的女性的声音。借鉴神话、流行文化和童话故事，我将重新审视《长发公主》（Rapunzel）对女性身体的调节，重点是头发作为女性自我表达的体现。我的批判性论文将研究印度当代文学小说之间的差距，这些文学小说描述了巫术指控和由此导致的对女性的剥夺，而流行文化叙事则将女巫的身体视为非人类，将她们的头发/辫子视为“不自然”女性力量的来源。

I intend to write a novel that recovers the voices of women identified as witches in contemporary India. Drawing upon myth, popular culture and fairy tales, I will re-ground 'Rapunzel' to examine the regulation of women's bodies, with a focus on hair as an embodiment of feminine self-expression. My critical thesis will examine the gap between contemporary literary fiction from India that describes witchcraft accusations and the resultant disempowering of women, and popular culture narratives that communicate witch bodies as non-human and their hair/braids as a source of 'unnatural' feminine power.