UNH Professor Discusses the History of Evil

Contact: Erika Mantz
603-862-1567
UNH Media Relations

Sept. 16, 2003



DURHAM, N.H. – A professor of religious studies and history at the University of New Hampshire will discuss the history of panics and purges of monstrous evil in western culture Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003, at 3 p.m. in UNH’s Memorial Union Building room 330.

Beginning with a discussion of the satanic ritual abuse panic of the 1980s and 1990s, David Frankfurter will talk about how the same imagery of monstrous evil, from cannibalism to perversity, arises over and over again to depict a world beyond morality -- a particularly terrifying threat when "experts" tell us it dwells in our very communities. He will also discuss how this imagery extends between notions of the demonic and notions of the foreign outsider, and how it has triggered acts of systematic brutality in anxious communities.

For more information contact the Center for the Humanities at (603) 862-4356 or jennifer.beard@unh.edu.