Research interests

My research is about the British and American history of the supernatural from prehistory to the present, focusing on witchcraft and magic. I've just finished a new book on 700 years of witch trials for Simon and Schuster (UK) and Scribner (US), Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials (2023/2024).

In 2022 I published the first full history of the St Osyth witches of 1582 for Cambridge University Press.I also edit the CUP series Elements in Magic, which is designed to bring out short, punchy new contributions to the field of magical studies from historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, archaeologists, medical humanities scholars, geographers, scholars of religion worldwide and scholars of film, media and social media. 

Research collaborations

£153,021 Leverhulme grant 'England's Mass Witch Hunt' with post-doc researcher Dr Tabitha Stanmore

In 2019 I hosted Professor Jay Johnston (University of Sydney) for a series of VIAF events on magic, landscape and religion run with Professor Nicola Whyte (History, Exeter) and Dr Will Pooley (Bristol).

£1,500 EPSRC Bridging the Gaps Grant ‘When Psychiatry Meets Literature and Culture’ with Dr. Mark Harrison (Devon NHS Trust) 2011-12

£216,072 AHRC Large Research Grant (plus funded PhD studentship bringing the total to £252,000) with Dr. Garry Tregidga (History, Exeter) 2008-11

Research supervision

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who would like to work on the history or literatures of the supernatural, especially witchcraft and magic. I’m a supportive and enthusiastic supervisor who has been helping PhD students undertake their dream projects for 20 years. Send me an email and we can chat about your ideas...

Research students

Fiona Williams

Lucy Hilliar

Anna Milon

Megan Jones

Dan Leigh

graduated:

Dorka Tamas

Barbara Santi

Samantha Rayne

Jo Ann Esra

Other information

Tweets at: https://twitter.com/witchesetc

External impact and engagement

I post as @witchesetc (Twitter) and @witchesetcinsta (Instagram). For media work see my "media" tab. My agent is Joanna Swainson at Hardman and Swainson.

Events: Chalke Valley History Festival (2 talks, main festival and schools festival), June 2023; book talk and signing, Treadwell's Books, Bloomsbury (June 2023), MCM ComicCon panel “Spellbound” with 4 creative writers, May 2023; RAMM “Witches” event with artist Lucy Stein, April 2023; in July 2022 I was a panellist in the “History of Witches and Witchcraft” event on the Standon Calling Festival talks programme. I participated in two AHRC “Being Human” events in 2015, ‘Modern Folk’ and ‘Magic from the Inquisition to Harry Potter’ and in “Certaine Wytches”, 2019, with the Devon Guild of Craftsmen (sic). I organised the ‘Mysticism, Myth, Nationalism’ conference in July 2010 with Shelley Trower and Garry Tregidga, including a public exhibition and a creative writers’ event. I have also delivered public talks at the Cornwall Centre, Lowender Peran Festival, the Historical Association, the Du Maurier Festival, for U3A, the National Trust, the Pagan Federation, London Geekfest, Harry Potter Society and Henrietta Barnett School history lectures series.

I'll be talking about and signing copies of Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials at literary festivals in summer and autumn 2023 including Budleigh Salterton and Bury St Edmunds, Caterham School History Festival, and at bookshops including Topping and Co (Edinburgh), Far from the Madding Crowd (Linlithgow), Eastgate Books (Totnes) and The Ivybridge Bookshop (Invybridge, Devon) - more tbc.

Contribution to discipline

I have been an invited or keynote speaker at the following conferences: 'Narrating Witchcraft', Erfurt (2016), 'Hexerie und öffentlichkeit', Stuttgart (2015), 'Witches and demons', Tromsø (2015), Medieval and Early Modern Studies Association of Korea, Seoul (2011), ‘Witchcraft Act 1604’, Durham (2004), ‘Hatred’, Chicago (2000). In June I will be speaking at the ‘Narrating Witchcraft’ event (part of the ERC-funded ‘Lived Ancient Religion’ project) at the Max Weber Institute, Erfurt. Other papers: University of Wales, Swansea; the Strawberry Hill Conference; Wolfson College, Oxford; The Western Conference on British Studies, Denver, University of Sussex early modern seminar, Oxford Brookes speakers series, ‘Britain and the Sea’ conference, University of Plymouth,  ‘Green Man’ conference, Trinity College Dublin, ‘Neo-Victorian Villainy’, University of York, ‘Regionalism and Representation’, University of Warwick.

I was ‘rapporteur’ for the ESRC on a project to create the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database (2003). I was on the editorial committee of the Pickering and Chatto series English Witchcraft 1560-1736 (2003). I review and/or read submissions regularly: for Women’s History Review, Preternature, Renaissance Quarterly, Seventeenth Century Journal, Folklore, Social History, National Identities, Early Modern Literary Studies, The Historian, the British Society for Literature and Science website, Supernatural Studies, Modern Language Review, Acta Borealia, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Gramarye etc and read proposals and completed books for Routledge, Yale University Press, Boydell and Brewer, Continuum, Ashgate and other publishers.

I was Editor of the European Journal of American Culture until December 2009, and am on the editorial board of Revenant, a new peer-reviewed e-journal of supernatural studies. I organised the Mysticism, Myth, Nationalism conference in 2010.

Media

Television and film

Witches, dir. Elizabeth Sankey, Ardimages/Montgomery Avenue (in development for MUBI 2023)

Sky History’s Britain’s Greatest Obsessions with Chris Packham (2022) https://www.history.co.uk/shows/britains-greatest-obsessions

“Halloween” on In the Loop with Christian Bryant, Newsy (2021) https://twitter.com/Newsy/status/1453898126943821824?s=20

Independent documentary for cinema and online release, Familiar Shapes (2021) https://www.familiarshapesthemovie.com/

BBC2’s Rick Stein’s Cornwall (2 episodes, 2020) https://www.rickstein.com/rick-steins-cornwall/

Windfall Films’ Mythical Beasts for the Discovery Science channel (2019) https://www.windfallfilms.com/show/11715/curse-of-the-living-dead.aspx

PBS’ Secrets of the Dead with Professor Alice Roberts (2019) https://www.tvinsider.com/762135/secrets-of-the-dead-king-arthurs-lost-kingdom-pbs/

BBC1’s The Big Questions with Nicky Campbell (series 9, episode 12, 2016) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076zjns

Revealed: The King’s War on Witches (Channel 5/National Geographic, 2012) https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_King%27s_War_On_Witches

Tony Robinson’s Gods and Monsters (Channel 4/National Geographic, 2011) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1997202/

Radio

BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week  “Power, Violence and Witches” with Kirsty Wark (2023) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hwyw

Times Radio, Jane Garvey and Fi Glover (2023)

BBC Radio Essex with Sadie Nine (2023)

BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Weekend Woman’s Hour (2022) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013h9j

BBC Radio 4’s Open Book with Mariella Frostrup, Siri Hustvedt and Stacey Halls (2019)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003jpd

BBC World Service’s The Why Factor “Witches” (2017) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvtc0

Radio 4’s In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg (2015) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/topics/Salem_witch_trials The Salem episode with my contribution appears in Melvyn Bragg and Simon Tillotson’s In Our Time companion (Simon and Schuster, October 2018).

Radio 4’s Open Book with Mariella Frostrup and Patrick Gale (2013) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038bpn6

BBC World Service’s Exorcism (2004) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1512_exorcism/index.shtml

BBC Radio 4’s Through the Courts with Clive Anderson (2001)

I have appeared on news and chat programmes on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive show, Radio Devon, Radio Cornwall, Radio Scotland, Three Counties Radio and ABC Australian radio’s Late Night Live.

Podcasts and blogs

Not Just the Tudors with Suzannah Lipscomb (2023) https://access.historyhit.com/not-just-the-tudors

Leaf and Elfie’s Curious Talks, “The History of Witchcraft” (2023) https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaf-elfie-curious-talks/id1516771826?i=1000596565288

Shot and Chaser, Somethin’ Else/Spotify 242 “What Happens During an Exorcism?” (2022) https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vnCWutsxXYYEPZLO6LVGL?si=zJIDRuKpTjClLivPdXyW2w

The Newcastle Witches, Candle and Bell 8 “How to Build a Witch” (January 2023) https://anchor.fm/the-newcastle-witches

Thou Shalt Not Suffer, “The Witches of St Osyth” (December 2022)

https://thoushaltnotsuffer.com/

BBC History Extra “Witch Hunters” (2022) https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/witch-hunters-podcast-marion-gibson/

Shot and Chaser, Somethin’ Else/Spotify “The Salem Witch Trials” (2022) https://open.spotify.com/episode/0MeDfYzB4doN9JHcgaLinK

Witches of Scotland podcast 51 (2022): https://www.witchesofscotland.com/podcast/episode/1de761f3/episode-51-professor-marion-gibson

The Piskie Trap, “The Bideford Witches” (2022) https://shows.acast.com/the-piskie-trap/episodes/the-bideford-witches

Ciaran Sneddon, Mysteries of Science “Witches, werewolves and vampires” (2021) https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/mysteries-of-science/id1559723564

Mark Norman, The Folklore Podcast (2019) https://www.blubrry.com/thefolklorepodcast/

Peter Meinertzhagen, Sublime Horror (2018) https://www.sublimehorror.com/2018/12/

James Watts, A Podded History of Devon (2018) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06tydrl

Cassidy Cash, That Shakespeare Life (2018) http://www.cassidycash.com/ep28/

BFM Malaysia Radio’s Evening Edition podcast Happily Ever After (2017) https://www.bfm.my/happily-ever-after-12-the-magic-of-fairy-tales

Press

"The Last British Woman Sent to Prison for Witchcraft - Only 80 Years Ago", The Daily Telgraph (14 June 2023)

Review of The Witches of St Osyth by David Aaronovitch, The Times (7 January 2023) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-witches-of-st-osyth-by-marion-gibson-review-0q7c6fh87

My work has also been featured in The Guardian, The Metro, The Telegraph, Archaeology, The Express and Echo, Evening Herald, Devon Life, The Catholic Herald, The Western Morning News, etc. Here’s a sample “Halloween” story: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/31/west-country-witches-witchcraft-witches-hanged

Articles and content

BBC History Magazine feature on the continuing relevance of witch trials, forthcoming 2023

Art Quarterly (Winter 2022)

https://www.artfund.org/about-us/art-quarterly

Smithsonian Magazine article on ducking stools (2022) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-authorities-dunked-outspoken-women-in-water-180980428/

BBC History Revealed magazine feature article “Rough injustice” (2022) https://pocketmags.com/history-revealed-magazine/april-2022/articles/1125243/rough-injustice

BBC History Magazine feature article “Witchfinders” (2022) https://www.historyextra.com/period/early-modern/witchfinding-witch-hunt-what-happened-why-methods-familiars-pricking-inquisition-matthew-hopkins/

BBC History Magazine review of Malcolm Gaskill, The Ruin of All Witches (February 2022)

BBC History Magazine review of John Callow, The Last Witches of England (November 2021)

BBC History Magazine “The Salem Witch Trials” (August 2021) https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20210805/281685437875600

Shepherd.com “The Best Books On Witchcraft in History” (October 2021) https://shepherd.com/best-books/witchcraft-in-history

All About History magazine (August 2020) https://pocketmags.com/au/all-about-history-magazine/issue-94/articles/798146/q-a-with-professor-marion-gibson

Lapham’s Quarterly

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/another-cat-wall

The Catholic Herald, Dominic Selwood: https://catholicherald.co.uk/englands-salem/

The Guardian, Rhiannon Cosslett: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/12/dark-charms-why-writers-are-spellbound-by-witches

The Huffington Post

(https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/marion-gibson/halloween_b_12726388.html?guccounter=1)

The Conversation

(http://theconversation.com/the-witch-the-facts-behind-the-folktales-56233)

and https://theconversation.com/the-love-witch-a-film-about-the-perversities-of-desire-that-will-soon-be-a-cult-feminist-classic-73308)

The Debrief

(http://www.thedebrief.co.uk/news/opinion/meet-the-women-in-modern-covens-20170266582)

Ulyces

(https://www.ulyces.co/camille-hamet/a-quoi-ressemblent-les-sorcieres-daujourdhui/)

Stylist

(https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/spells-in-the-city-why-an-increasing-number-of-women-are-practicing-witchcraft-digital-spiritual-modern/69261)

Actively Learn (https://read.activelylearn.com/#teacher/reader/authoring/preview/836084/notes)

Sublime Horror

(https://www.sublimehorror.com/books/witches-in-fiction-reading-list-marion-gibson/#more-383)

Many Books

(https://manybooks.net/articles/5-books-about-witches-recommended-marion-gibson)

Historical consultancy

The Witches of St Osyth is being developed as a play, on which I am historical consultant; I was historical consultant for the National Theatre production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (2022). I worked with RAMM (Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter) on the Earthspells: Witches of the Anthropocene exhibition (2023). I was interviewed for the Stylus Media Group’s consumer trends report on contemporary spirituality in July 2017, which resulted in the Modern Mysticism report: https://www.stylus.com/nwczzp (behind paywall). I am regularly consulted by media researchers – e.g. a Radio 4 radio drama about witches, Ursula and Boy (2010), C4’s documentary The Pendle Witch Child (2010), a BBC One Show report on an archaeological site in Cornwall (2011), and the BBC’s documentary series The Real White Queen and her Rivals (2013).

Teaching

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. My undergraduate teaching has included: 

year 1: Success in Interdisciplinary Study, Foundations; Shakespeare and the History of Ideas; Reinventions year 2: Renaissance, Reformation and Rebellion; Interdisciplinary Research Project year 3: Dissertation; Interdisciplinary Dissertation, Indepenent Study. Masters: From Fairyland to Philippi.

I have often offered the popular optional module Witchcraft and Magic in Culture primarily to History and English students, and it is also open to geographers, law and politics students, and intercalating medical students.

Biography

I was born on the Isle of Wight and educated at Northwood Primary School, Somerton Middle School and Cowes High School.

Academic Qualifications

PhD, University of Exeter, 1997

M.A., University of Birmingham, 1992

B.A. Hons. 1^st class, University of Exeter, 1991

FRHistS

FHEA