Lecture | H.S. Versnel Memorial Lecture
The Materiality of Evil
- Date
- Monday 14 December 2026
- Time
- Address
- Museum of Antiquities / Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
Rapenburg 28
2311 EW Leiden - Room
- Tempelzaal
After a brief word of welcome by Professor Miguel John Versluys, Professor David Frankfurter will deliver the first H.S. Versnel Memorial Lecture.
What would a materiality of evil entail? Professor Frankfurter will begin by reconsidering the Louvre curse assemblage, with its hog-tied and spiked figurine of a woman, as potent in antiquity but offensive to the modern gaze, and then turn to other objects in modernity with the capacity and potency to offend – even, one might say, to situate an “evil animacy” among us. Such things may reflect the “coefficient of weirdness” that the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski described as essential to magical power, or a hyperexperience of the demonic cultivated in religious traditions, or a collective outrage based in shared experience. Finally, Professor Frankfurter will turn to two materialities of evil distinctive of the late antique Mediterranean world: the book as bearer of evil and the idol itself – the repudiated image.
About the speaker
David Frankfurter is Professor of Religion and the Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. He is the author of numerous publications on the apocalypse, violence and religion, magic and lived religion in Late Antiquity, and the spread of Christianity in ancient cultures, particularly Egypt. His books on these topics include Religion in Roman Egypt (1998), Christianizing Egypt (2018), and Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History (2006). In addition, Frankfurter served as editor of two volumes in the Religions in the Graeco-Roman World series (De Gruyter Brill): Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt (1998) and Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic (2019).
Registration and organisation
Please note that this lecture will be conducted in English. Doors open at 7.00 p.m. The event will start at 7.30 p.m. After the lecture, we will raise a glass to Henk Versnel.
Attendance is free and open to all. For catering and room-capacity planning, please register by completing the online registration form: H.S. Versnel Memorial Lecture: The Materiality of Evil
This lecture, in commemoration of Professor Emeritus H.S. (Henk) Versnel, has been made possible by: Leventis Foundation, De Gruyter Brill, Museum of Antiquities, Leiden University (KIEM grant), the Leiden University Institute for History and the Faculty of Archaeology. The lecture is organised by the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions.