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An illustration by Bethan Oake of the sabbath

'Evil’ amongst us: scapegoats, suspicion, and the folk devils of the Satanic Panic by Dr Bethan Juliet Oake

Gothic Takeover
Leeds City Museum
Sat 23 May 13:30 - 14:15
Leeds City Museum
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Sat 23 May
13:30 - 14:15
Book now
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The 1980s saw a wave of unfounded fears of Satanic cult criminality sweep America (and beyond), resulting in a mass of arrests and incarcerations of innocent people. 

This talk discusses the popular ‘folk devils’ targeted in the Satanic Panic: social groups that were singled out and scapegoated as embodying this moral ‘evil’. The symbol of ‘Satanic evil’ perpetuated by this moral panic was grounded in wider cultural fears and prejudices relating to both sexuality and subculture. But these themes were not new, merely a 20th century iteration of a longstanding medieval myth. And concerningly, as this talk will analyse, we have today again witnessed their repackaged revival - reminding us that Satanic Panic is very much back in motion,  its same patterns of folk devils recycled.

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