Digital Event Type: Zoom Lecture

The Satanic Panic: Its Roots and Branches

Although the recent resurrection of the Satanic Panic discourse tends to locate this phenomenon in the late 1980s through the early 1990s (thanks to a storyline on the series Stranger Things), the roots of this cultural oddity go back decades further. Of course, one could argue that the fear of Satan and all his works has been part of human history for centuries, as long as Christianity remains a powerful religious influence in the world, that fear is likely to continue. But the late 20th century Satanic Panic marked a volatile confluence of factors: an occult revival in the 1960s followed by a rise in secularism in the 1970s, and increased religious factionalism combined with the rise of right-wing political movements in the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, the stage was set for a number of prominent events that later came to define the Satanic Panic era. This talk will explore a number of disparate but often related elements that converged to create the Satanic Panic of the 1980s-’90s, including Satanic themed horror films (such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen), the Manson Family murders, and the rise of the Moral Majority in the US.

Bio:

Peg Aloi is a freelance film and TV critic, a former professor of media studies, and co-editor (with Hannah Sanders) of The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture (Routledge) and Carnivale and the American Grotesque: Critical Essays on the HBO Series (Macfarland). With Hannah she also co-organized two scholarly conferences at Harvard University on paganism, witchcraft and media. Peg’s forthcoming book The Witching Hour: How Witches Enchanted the World is a cultural analysis of the witch in contemporary media. Recently Peg was featured in the documentary film The Witches of Hollywood. She is currently editing a collection of essays for The University of Liverpool Press: Women in Folk Horror: Cradles, Cauldrons, Forests and Blood. Peg was also one of the co-founders of The Witches’ Voice and wrote about film and TV for the site for over a decade, and her long-running blog “The Witching Hour” can now be found on Substack. Peg also works as a professional gardener.

Curated & Hosted by

Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic, ethnographer and folklorist speaking and writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently working on several Colquhoun related manuscripts. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and she is a curator and host for the Last Tuesday Society lecture series.

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Formidable Warrior Women: Tales of the Amazons in Antiquity

Tales of the Amazons, a female-only society of fierce warriors, captured the imagination of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In antiquity, Amazons inspired a range of reactions – some saw them as a threat to the Greek patriarchal state, while others treated them as valiant heroes. This presentation examines a wide range of art and literature to trace changing attitudes towards these warrior women throughout Greece and Rome.

Bio:

Connie Skibinski is an Early Career Research having recently completed a PhD (Classics) at The University of Newcastle. Her primary research interest is Greco-Roman mythology and the adaptation of ancient mythology from the Medieval period to the contemporary era. Her doctoral thesis is a Classical Reception study of the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, examining written and visual representations from antiquity to the twenty-first century. Connie has published on the Amazons in contemporary media and is currently co-editing three edited volumes (on Xena, Wonder Woman and ancient women). She is also working on a contracted monograph on Amazons in Medieval literature, as well as a book chapter that examines the ancient Amazons through a queer theory lens.

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Darkling Shadows & Midsummer Madness: The Weird Fiction of R Murray Gilchrist

Sheela-Na-Gigs: Power, Politics and Sexuality

Sheela-na-gigs are sculpted female forms displaying their, sometimes exaggerated, vulvas. While these carvings are found through much of Europe, there is the highest concentration of them in Ireland and Britain, with many also found in France and Spain. Archaeologically, they are categorised as “grotesques”, similar to gargoyles, found on church architecture and thought to ward off evil influence. While there is no consensus on their origin or age, some scholars place the emergence of such carvings in the 11th century. This talk tracks the history of Sheela-na-gigs in Ireland against the backdrop of Irish history. The women of Ireland were subjugated during an era in which female sexuality itself came to be regarded as vulgar, shameful, and deviant. In contemporary Ireland, there has been a resurgence of interest and cultural (re)connection with the Sheela-na-gig. The symbol has been utilised in political campaigns for women’s empowerment, in art, and in spirituality and examples are given of how today the Sheela is a vibrant, powerful, and celebrated form.

Bio

Dr Jenny Butler is President of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions (ISASR). She is a Lecturer in the Study of Religions Department at University College Cork and a Principal Investigator of UCC’s Environmental Research Institute (ERI). Her research interests are in the area of New Religious Movements, Western esotericism, and folk religion. Her monograph 21st Century Irish Paganism: Worldview, Ritual, Identity is forthcoming from Routledge.

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Lewis Carroll and Surrealism

Surrealist writers and artists have been fascinated by Lewis Carroll’s works for over a century. Eileen Agar described him as a “herald of surrealism”, while André Breton refers to him as the “first teacher in the art of playing hooky” and references to the Alice books can be seen in dozens of surrealist artworks.Carroll’s influence on the Surrealists is both fascinating and indisputable. But, to what extent can we refer to Carroll himself as a “Surrealist”? A close examination of his life and works, his diaries and letters, reveal a man fascinated by dreams, differing states of consciousness and a desire to explore the absurd.

This talk will demonstrate Carroll’s influence on the Surrealists, explore the remarkable mind of the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and attempt to understand why this often misunderstood, English mathematician deserves a place in the history of Surrealism.

Bio

Mark Richards has been studying the life and works of Lewis Carroll for nearly 50 years. He is a collector, a former Chair of The Lewis Carroll Society and is currently developing the Lewis Carroll Resources website. (lewiscarrollresources.net)

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