89: Angela Puca

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

Angela Puca joins me for this week’s fascinating Nostalgia Interview. Based at Leeds Trinity University, where she is a PhD student, Angela and I talk about how we can no longer have physical conferences during lockdown and why she moved to the UK from Italy in order to do her PhD.

We learn that Angela, who sticks to a daily writing schedule, has her own YouTube channel called Angela’s Symposium which is dedicated to the academic study of magic, paganism, witchcraft and esotericism: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSbip_LX2AxbGeAQfLp-Ig. Angela tells me about the reasons for its inception.

We discuss why the journey is more important than the final product, and Angela talks about her Italian background and how her academic journey began and why she is interested in contemporary work on witchcraft. We discover where her interest in magic comes from and how it is a way for people to connect beyond the five senses.

Angela tells me why we create rather than find our own meaning, and we discover that she used to sing in metal bands and is also trained to sing opera. She has also performed in musicals. We learn about her favourite poet and why she likes David Lynch’s films which, she explains, awaken something within us which we don’t necessarily understand.

Angela and I talk about the need to know what the classical methods and structures are before we can be in a position to break those rules, and she explains why she recalls positive memories more than the negative ones. We discuss how Covid has shown how resilient we are and we learn that Angela’s teenage self wouldn’t be surprised at what she is doing now.

At the end of the interview Angela reveals why she loved school so much and why she wanted to study for the rest of her life and we learn why she would define herself as a looking forward type of person with nostalgic tendencies.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Angela Puca and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.