Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World
Why have so many people, at so many different times and places, believed that corpses can work harm to the living, and have thought it necessary to ‘kill’ them over again? This lecture explores the vampire phenomenon in its psychological, social and historical contexts. It argues that the propensity to believe in dangerous corpses is not a human universal, but activated by a combination of belief-systems with episodes of trauma. In some ways it is a classic instance of persecution mania, except that the victims are already dead, and therefore cannot suffer. Killing the dead is better than killing the living.
Speaker Bio:
John Blair is an Emeritus Fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and Emeritus Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford. His main research is on early medieval north-western Europe. His earlier books include The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (2005) and Building Anglo-Saxon England (2018).
Curated & Hosted by:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
