Overview

Towards the end of apartheid, white South Africans found themselves in the middle of new social and political change that showed itself in some strangely morbid 'symptoms'. This book discusses two of the primary symptoms that appeared in the media and in popular literature at the time - an apparent threat from a cult of white Satanists and a so-called epidemic of white family murder. These two 'moral panics' reveal important truths about the attitudes of white culture at that time, revealing both a social response to fear of change and the effects that apartheid may have had on those who benefited from it the most.

Full Product Details

9781431423279

Table of Contents

Reviews

'This book is haunted by a double ghost: First the ghoulish Satanist, black-clad, draped in knives and symbols, pockets dripping foreign pornography and drugs; and second, the white Afrikaans family murderer, his hollow eyes tracking the movements of his children across the kitchen and plotting ways to save them from the corruption of the modern world. These were figures that stalked my adolescence. They are harder to find these days, but their traces remain: In the pages of books, newspapers, pamphlets and magazines, and slumbering in the backs of libraries'. - Nicky Falkof.

Author Information

Nicky Falkof was born and raised in the Johannesburg suburbs during the last years of apartheid. She holds an MA in critical theory from the University of Sussex and a PhD from the London Consortium. She is currently senior lecturer in media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available