Event Category: Esoteric

Mythical Mothers, Monsters, and Mesopotamia – Dr Louise Pryke – Zoom

Mythical Mothers, Monsters, and Mesopotamia
Despite the antiquity of the topic, motherhood in Mesopotamia has received little attention in modern scholarship. Yet mothers are extremely important cultural figures throughout many periods, with numerous heroes of Mesopotamian epic depicted having close connections to their mothers. Maternal figures often play a pivotal role in myths, and historical kings as well as legendary ones are shown to value their mother’s guiding wisdom. In this talk, we consider the connection of motherhood, wisdom, and protection in Mesopotamia, and discover that even quasi-divine heroes who cut pathways through mountains and battle giant monsters cannot succeed without the support and wisdom of their mothers.
Bio
Dr Louise M. Pryke is a research associate at the University of Sydney. She is the author of several books including Ishtar (2017), Gilgamesh (2019), and Wind (2023).
Curated & Hosted by
Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Image: Plaque with face of the demon Humbaba, Babylon, c. 2000-1600 BCE. The Met. Public Domain.
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Cholera in Victorian England: Medicine, Myths, and Modernity – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

 

Cholera in Victorian England: Medicine, Myths, and Modernity

Step into the 19th century and explore the devastating impact of cholera on Victorian England. Learn how this deadly disease swept through crowded cities, challenging public health systems and sparking fear across all classes of society. Discover the evolving understanding of disease transmission, from miasma theory to the groundbreaking work of pioneers like John Snow, whose mapping of outbreaks paved the way for modern epidemiology.

Through vivid historical accounts, we will delve into the era’s social and medical responses, including sanitation reform, quarantine measures, and curious remedies like “cholera belts” and aromatic pouches. This lecture examines how cholera shaped public health policies and attitudes toward urban living, leaving a legacy that resonates to this day. Join us to uncover the interplay between science, society, and the human will to overcome epidemic crises in a rapidly industrializing world.

Bio:

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

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Nordic Midsummer Stories – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

Nordic Midsummer Stories

Join us for an enchanting lecture that transports you to the heart of Scandinavia, where the magic of midsummer comes alive through captivating stories and folklore! As the sun shines brightest and the nights are filled with enchanting possibilities, discover the rich tapestry of midsummer traditions that have been passed down through generations. From tales of mythical creatures dancing in the twilight to the spirited celebrations that honor the earth’s bounty, these stories reflect the deep connection between the people and their natural surroundings. We’ll explore the vibrant customs, rituals, and legends that define this magical season, shedding light on how midsummer shapes cultural identities and community bonds across the Nordic countries. Perfect for lovers of folklore and those curious about Scandinavian heritage, this lecture promises to inspire a sense of wonder and appreciation for the age-old stories that continue to illuminate our world. Don’t miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the joyous spirit of midsummer.

Bio:

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

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Macaroni and sausages – Mr. Punch’s journey from Napoli to somewhere-on-sea – John Rudlin – Zoom

Macaroni and sausages – Mr. Punch’s journey from Napoli to somewhere-on-sea

Join award-winning actor, academic, playwright, director, theatre designer, reviewer, and onetime showman, flyman and rigger, John Rudlin for a fabulous journey into the life and times of the outrageous Mr Punch! A renowned expert in Italian commedia dell’arte, John traces Mr Punch’s origins in the Italian theatre through to the supposedly English tradition of a loveable but murdering slapstick puppet. John will also take more than a glance at the women in Mr Punch’s life.

In his little booth, Punch is today the sole performing survivor in England of the great theatrical genre of commedia dell’arte, which dominated the European stage for almost three centuries. John Rudlin is an acknowledged expert in the form – his Commedia dell’arte, a Handbook for Actors has been continuously in print for forty years. (See www.commediahandbook.com). He is the current holder of the Society For Theatre Research Stephen Joseph award.

Speaker Bio:

John Rudlin is the author of numerous books, articles, and chapters, including Jacques Copeau (CUP, 1986); Copeau, Texts on Theatre (Routledge, 1990); Commedia dell’Arte, an actor’s handbook (Routledge, 1994); Commedia dell’Arte, a resourcebook for troupes (Routledge, 2001); Commedia dell’Arte: its structure and tradition, John Rudlin in conversation with Antonio Fava (Routledge, 2021); The Metamorphoses of Commedia dell’Arte: whatever happened to Harlequin? (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2022).Checkout John’s website for more publications – including his keynote addresses: ‘Flour Sacks and Farthingales’ for the conference Crossing Boundaries: Commedia Dell’ Arte Across Gender, Genre, and Geography (University of Windsor, Ontario, 2013) and ‘Jacques Copeau’s Legacy to Theatre and Education’ for The Actor as Person, Theatre as Communion (University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 2013) – available at www.commediahandbook.com

Curated & Hosted by:

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Six Centuries of Madness- the History of Bedlam Asylum – Lena Heide-Brennand – Zoom

Six Centuries of Madness – the History of Bedlam Asylum

Step into the haunting history of Bedlam Asylum, a name synonymous with madness and human suffering. Founded in the 13th century, this notorious institution became a chilling symbol of how society treated the mentally ill. Journey through the eerie corridors where the cries of the tormented once echoed, and explore the harrowing tales of its residents, many of whom were subjected to barbaric treatments and inhumane conditions. From its early days as a charitable institution to its transformation into a spectacle for public viewing, Bedlam’s legacy is steeped in tragedy and intrigue. Discover the dark secrets behind its walls, the infamous patients who resided there, and the evolution of mental health care that emerged from its shadows. This lecture promises to immerse you in the unsettling yet fascinating narrative of Bedlam, revealing how this once-feared asylum continues to captivate our imagination and challenge our understanding of mental health today. Dare to uncover the eerie truths behind one of history’s most infamous institutions.

Bio:

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

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The Agony and the Ecstasy: Sacred and Carnal Devotion to Saints – Eric Huang – Zoom

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Sacred and Carnal Devotion to Saints

European art overflows with luxurious depictions of Catholic divinities. Legends of saints’ executions were once painted in gruesome detail in the Middle Ages. They were stylised like cartoons to highlight ecstatic pain and suffering: the gorier the holier. In the Renaissance, depictions took on a naturalistic form. What were once graphic images of torture became voluptuous works of art: bulging biceps on arms bound to a tree, full breasts expressing milk, enraptured nude pin-ups punctured by arrows and swords. The faces and bodies of Catholic figures were often portraits of illicit lovers commissioned by bishops, bankers, kings – hidden away in private salons and invitation-only drawing rooms for the delectation of the select few. Join Eric Huang, creator and host of Saint Podcast, in this streaming lecture about the erotic in Catholic legend and art – and explore how devotional images have inspired both sacred and carnal ecstasy since the Renaissance.

[image] Mattia Preti, ‘Saint Sebastian’, c.1660. Neapolitan Gallery.

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 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 & Hosted byMarguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Beyond Sawney Bean: Scottish Cannibal Families – Fact, Fiction or Propaganda? – Geoff Holder – Zoom

Beyond Sawney Bean: Scottish Cannibal Families – Fact, Fiction or Propaganda?

Explore several cases of cannibalism from Scottish history, which may not be all that they seem.

Did three Scottish fathers from different centuries feed their families by killing and eating unsuspecting wayfarers during times of war and famine? According to the historical records they did. But were these stories actual reportage? Tall tales? Or even anti-Scottish propaganda? Join author Geoff Holder as he tries to uncover the ghastly truth or despicable lies behind these episodes reported from Dundee, Perth and Ayrshire. Expect a good deal of vile unpleasantness. And as a bonus, learn the story of a genuine nineteenth-century Scottish cannibal lass!

Bio

Geoff Holder is a Welsh author and screenwriter. He has published more than 30 books on the paranormal and general weirdness, including Zombies From History, 101 Things to Do With a Stone Circle, Poltergeist over Scotland, Scottish Bodysnatchers and The Guide to the Mysterious Lake District. He writes folk-horror screenplays and genre-mashup novels from a 300-year-old allegedly haunted house in deepest France and likes dogs and music with rocks in it.

Curated & Hosted by

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Great Pan is Dead? 21st century television and film, ecohorror, and the Old Gods – Dr Katy Soar – Zoom

Great Pan is Dead? 21st century television and film, ecohorror, and the Old Gods

A quick glance at 21st century screen schedules might suggest that when it comes to the old gods, Thamus’ message was correct – the great god Pan is dead. There are few examples of television or film representations of the goat-horned god, and his representation within these examples are varied. When it comes to themes of folk horror and the eco-gothic, Pan is conspicuous by his absence, particularly in comparison to his earlier literary representations. Conversely, and admittedly again few in number, when it comes to representing the eco-gothic or eco-horror through the medium of the old gods, Cernunnos has become a more familiar figure. In this talk I will explore the 21st century screen representations of both of these gods, to consider why there may have been a move from Pan to Cernunnos as the go-to ‘old god’ for this medium.

Bio

Katy Soar is a Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Winchester. Her research areas include Greek archaeology (especially the Bronze Age of the Aegean), the history and reception of archaeology, and the relations between archaeology and folk horror. She is the co-editor (with Amara Thornton) of Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural, 1895-1954 (Handheld Press), the editor of the British Library ‘Tales of the Weird’ volume Circles of Stone: Strange Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites, and a frequent contributor to the magazine Hellebore.

Curated & Hosted by

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Caption: Gundestrup boiler, inside Description Gundestrup boiler, inner plates, Y.FRJ, Rævemosen, Ålborg County. Creative Commons.

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Seances and the Female Medium in British Cinema – a Zoom talk with Icy Sedgwick – Zoom

Victorian Spiritualism offered women a tantalising glimpse of freedom through the financial earning power and social status provided to popular mediums. Indeed, while male mediums did exist and regularly toured Britain, it is the figure of the female medium that has characterised how we view these seance leaders in contemporary popular culture. Michelle Yeoh plays one such figure in the latest Poirot film, A Haunting in Venice. This talk will explore how the female medium has been represented in a selection of British films, including The Stone Tape, Quatermass and the Pit, and The Others.

 

Icy Sedgwick has recently completed a PhD exploring the representation of the haunted house in contemporary Hollywood horror films. She runs the Fabulous Folklore podcast, investigating European folklore and its appearances in popular culture. In case she tires of the research, Icy also writes dark fantasy and Gothic horror fiction.

Your host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Ghostland, a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. He recently edited Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen (2024) for the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series. For further info see:
https://edwardparnell.com

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[Photo: a publicity still from the 1964 British crime thriller Seance on a Wet Afternoon]

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Tales of the Supernatural – by James Machin – Zoom

Best known as the creator of the arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) also had a deep fascination with the supernatural, which found expression in his eerie, Gothic fiction. This talk delves into the spectral terror, weird horror, and occult intrigue of Doyle’s lesser-known stories in the genre. His fascination with the supernatural shaped his fiction throughout his career, from early tales of Arctic fright and ancient curses to later works exploring spiritualism, psychic phenomena, and the limits of human perception. Beyond the page, Doyle’s unwavering belief in the unseen – particularly spiritualism – became a defining aspect of his public life during his later years, drawing admiration from spiritualist circles but controversy from elsewhere.

Join us for an evening of spectral visitations, haunted minds, and the blurred line between science and faith.

 

James Machin is an editor, researcher, and writer who lives in Tring. Recent books include British Weird: Selected Short Fiction, 1893–1937 for Handheld Press – and his short fiction has been published in Supernatural Tales, The Shadow Booth, and Weirdbook. His edition of Conan Doyle’s 1895 novel The Stark Munro Letters for Edinburgh University Press was published in 2024 and he has since commenced work in his next volume in the same series, Conan Doyle’s 1908 collection of ‘grotesque’ tales, Round the Fire Stories. More information about the Edinburgh Conan Doyle Project can be found here:
https://edinburgh-conan-doyle.org/

Your host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Ghostland, a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. He recently edited Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen (2024) for the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series. For further info see:
https://edwardparnell.com

 

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day