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1930’s Cairo: Jinn summoners and mystics

In 1930’s Cairo there was a police campaign to shut down the shadow world of Jinn summoners and mystics. At the same time, another group emerged, the hypnotists and spiritualists inspired by the scientific progress of the 20th century. This talk puts these two phenomena alongside each other, looking at one of the most famous court cases of the 1930’s, involving an Italian woman who had married one of the kings of the Jinn world, and at some of the most famous hypnotists of modern Cairo. Looking at these two things together, the talk will explore questions of gender, modernity, and East-West relations in a completely new way.

Bio

Raphael Cormack is Assistant Professor of Arabic at Durham University. He is a writer, translator, and editor. His first book, Midnight in Cairo, was about the female stars of Egypt’s early 20th century entertainment scene. Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age, about the transnational history of the occult in the 1920’s and 1930’s, is his second book.

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. She lives in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesvos.

Caption

Dr Salomon, Arabic hypnotist and his medium Emile.

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Will You Join The Dance? A brief history of the Danse Macabre

The Dance of Death was an artistic trope that began in the fifteenth century to show death as the great leveller: everyone will die, from the lowliest peasant to the king and the pope. Death is depicted as a skeleton, leading people from all walks of life to join his dance. This talk will look at the origins of this image, and the way it evolved, and tied in with other memento mori images, as well as reflecting shifts in anatomical understanding

Bio:

Cat Irving has been the Human Remains Conservator for Surgeons’ Hall since 2015 and has been caring for anatomical and pathological museum collections for over twenty years. After a degree in Anatomical Science she began removing brains and sewing up bodies at the Edinburgh City Mortuary. Following training in the care of wet tissue collections at the Royal College of Surgeons of England she worked with the preparations of William Hunter at the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University, where she is now Consultant Human Remains Conservator. Cat is a licensed anatomist, and gives regular talks on anatomy and medical history. She recently carried out conservation work on the skeleton of serial killer William Burke

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Latin American Mythology and Legends – Gods, Ghosts, and Forbidden Forests

From the whispering jungles of the Amazon to the haunted streets of colonial cities, Latin America is steeped in stories that blur the line between myth and reality. Join us for a captivating journey through a continent rich in ancient deities, shape-shifting spirits, bloodthirsty creatures, and heroic tricksters.

This lecture dives into the mythologies of the Aztec, Maya, Inca, and lesser-known Indigenous cultures—alongside folk legends like La Llorona, El Silbón, and the Chupacabra. Discover how colonialism, Catholicism, and native beliefs intertwined to create some of the most potent and haunting lore on Earth.

Whether you’re drawn to the gods of the sun and maize, or the weeping woman who wanders by moonlight, this is a night of stories that will enchant, terrify, and inspire.

Speaker 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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Fairy Tales: Their Ancient Origins

Did you know that the story of “Cinderella” can be traced back to ancient Greece of 2,500 years ago? How about “Beauty and the Beast,” based on the 2,000-year-old Roman story of “Cupid and Psyche”? These are just two examples of the many fairy tales that have their origins in the ancient world. This talk explores the nature of fairy tales in antiquity and their influence on later tales. We will explore ancient Egyptian stories, a medieval “Little Red Riding Hood,” and variants in the collections of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and others.

Image: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, ‘The Abduction of Psyche’ (1895).

Bio

Debbie Felton is Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches ancient Greek and Latin as well as various courses in translation, such as “Fairy Tales in the Ancient World,” “Magic in the Ancient Mediterranean,” and “Monsters of Classical Myths—and Their Meanings.” She specializes in folklore in classical literature and has published on various folklore-related topics including ghosts and witches. She is the author of Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (1999) and Serial Killers in Classical Myth and History (2021). She has also edited several volumes, including A Cultural History of Fairy Tales in Antiquity (2021) and The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth (2024).

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. She lives in Mytilene.

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Medusa: A History in 3,000 Years

In her role as a seemingly destructive female from classical mythology, Medusa continues to fascinate and disturb modern audiences. She has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries: Is she a dangerous, man-destroying monster? An innocent maiden unjustly punished by the gods? A supernatural entity who just wanted to be left alone? A feminist icon?This talk presents various perspective on Medusa ranging over the last three thousand years, including representations from both literature and art, from early Greek texts such as Hesiod’s Origins of the Gods to recent artistic reconceptions such as Luciano Garbati’s Medusa with the Head of Perseus (2008) and beyond.

Bio

Debbie Felton is Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches ancient Greek and Latin as well as various courses in translation, such as “Fairy Tales in the Ancient World,” “Magic in the Ancient Mediterranean,” and “Monsters of Classical Myths—and Their Meanings.” She specializes in folklore in classical literature and has published on various folklore-related topics including ghosts and witches. She is the author of Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (1999) and Serial Killers in Classical Myth and History (2021). She has also edited several volumes, including A Cultural History of Fairy Tales in Antiquity (2021) and The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth (2024).

Image: Gorgoneion featuring the head of Medusa, Greece, 4th Century BCE. Pushkin Museum.

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. She lives in Mytilene.

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Freshwater Mermaids: The Last Ladies of the Lake

High on Kinder Scout in the Peak District sits a small, unassuming tarn known as the Mermaid’s Pool. Victorian locals would trek there at Easter midnight, hoping for a glimpse of its mysterious inhabitant, a benevolent spirit who offered immortality rather than death. Far from being an isolated phenomenon, the Kinder Mermaid belongs to a largely overlooked category in English folklore: the “lake ladies.” This talk recalls the folklore of these rare female water spirits—from Yorkshire to Herefordshire—arguing they form a distinct supernatural cohort separate from murderous “drowners” like Jenny Greenteeth.

Bio

Dr Simon Young is a British folklore historian based in Italy. He is the editor of Exeter New Approaches to Legends, Folklore and Popular Legends and teaches history at University of Virginia’s Siena Campus (CET). Over the years he has run courses on the History of Christianity, Italian Food History, Italian Media History, Contemporary Italian History, WW2 in Italy and Italian Renaissance History. He has written extensively on the nineteenth-century supernatural. His book The Boggart (from Exeter University Press) and The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends (from Mississippi University Press) came out in 2022.

Articles listing: https://independent.academia.edu/SimonYoung43

Latest books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boggart-Folklore-History-Placenames-Approaches/dp/1905816901/ref

[Free downloadable source book, click ‘open access]: https://www.exeterpress.co.uk/en/Book/2114/The-Boggart-Sourcebook.html

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. She lives in Mytilene.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day