THE SAINTS SERIES
Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.
Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.
Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.
In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.
Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).
Valentine’s Day, Thurs 11 Feb – Love Will Tear Us Apart: The Loveless Legend of Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine is said to preside over romantic love. His feast day marks a night and day when couples around the world exchange flowers, chocolates, and ritualised displays of affection. Yet beneath these candlelit performances, falls a dark shadow. The two weeks immediately before and after Valentine’s Day see the sharpest shift in social media relationship statuses from ‘dating’ to ‘single.’
This irony collapses when we return to the original hagiography of the ancient Roman martyr, which has nothing whatsoever to do with romance. Saint Valentine is, in fact, entirely loveless. This talk explores how an obscure patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague was posthumously transformed into the patron of love, even as his feast day is still to this day overtaken by pagan figures beyond the reach of Christendom.
CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Relic of St. Valentine in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, Italy. Image by Dnalor_01, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Pride, Thurs 3 June – This Charming Man: Saint Sebastian and the Making of a Queer Icon
According to legend, Saint Sebastian was a citizen of ancient Rome who distinguished himself in battle and rose quickly to become the trusted right hand of the Emperor. Outwardly, he embodied imperial power, military discipline, and masculine virtue. Beneath this polished exterior lay a forbidden truth: Sebastian was a closeted Christian, devoted to an illegal cult practiced in the shadows of empire.
This illustrated talk returns to the earliest legends of this ancient martyr to explore how a middle aged military commander—once venerated as a protector against plague and pandemics—was gradually remade, through centuries of art, devotion, and desire, into a barely legal queer icon.
CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Sebastian, St Joseph Church, Meenachil, Kottayam, Kerala. Image by Jinesh8100, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Halloween, Thurs 28 Oct – The Power of Christ Compels You: A Halloween History of Catholic Exorcism
The Catholic Church is a master of spectacle. Step into a cathedral to feel how architecture itself has been harnessed to proclaim divine authority. Perhaps no Catholic rite better exemplifies this than exorcism. First developed to purge converts of the ‘evil spirits’ of non Christian gods, the rite evolved into standing room only performances in the seventeenth century, carefully scripted to reclaim Protestant souls and reaffirm the Pope’s power.
The Power of Christ Compels You! traces the history of Catholic exorcism—from its origins and entanglements with the infernal to the theatrical strategies clerics deployed to inflame passions, terrorise audiences, and consolidate ecclesiastical authority … with lethal consequences.
CAPTION FOR IMAGE: All Saints’ Day, Poland, Public Domain.
Christmas, Thurs 16 Dec – Last Christmas: Saint Nicholas and a Very Pagan Christmas
Father Christmas, aka Santa Claus, is the commercial and secular face of Christmas—an ancient Christian festival that sought to smother older rites. The Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year, was a perilous and liminal moment, when the forces of darkness returned to the mortal plane. Recast by Christianity as the celebration of a new-born messiah, the winter holy days nevertheless remained entangled with their pagan roots.
The legends of saints such as Nicholas and Lucy merged with those of sorcerers, demons, flying animals, and resurrected corpses to give shape to modern holiday traditions. This illustrated lecture traces the evolution of Christmas and its ringleader, Santa Claus, while exploring flying cats, the demon Krampus, Coca Cola, and the resurrection of three butchered siblings.
CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Nicholas, Poland, Public Domain.
Bio:
Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.
Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.
Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.
Curated by Marguerite Johnson
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 four weeks the next day
