Halloween: The Curious Story of America’s Most Horrible Holiday

Illustrated Lecture by Lesley Bannatyne, author of Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History
Date:
Sunday October 26th
Time: 8:00 PM

Admission: $8

Purchase tickets here

Presented by Morbid Anatomy

*** Offsite at the Morbid Anatomy Museum ( New Location ) : 424A 3rd Ave (Corner of 7th St), Brooklyn, NY 11215

No matter how much we try to stretch it, Halloween happens only when the light casts a certain length of shadow and the temperature slides. The night is dug into the year like a marker. Before Halloween: creativity, anticipation, endless possibility. After Halloween: winter. The sheer G-force of accelerating time makes us cling to something organically cyclical, to hold tight to this night of benevolent exhibitionism and group glee before the bitter dissension of November hits.

Tonight, join Halloween scholar Lesley Bannatyne as she traces our onetime children’s holiday-turned-blood-and-guts carnival from its tiny origins in northwestern Europe through its recent explosion in popularity in the States. Drawing on research from her latest book, Halloween Nation. Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night, Bannatyne looks at everything from spirit communication to monster culture to extreme haunted entertainments to horror films, to highlight who celebrates Halloween and what makes it so important to so many people

Lesley Bannatyne is an author who has written five books on Halloween who has appeared on television specials for Nickelodeon and the History Channel (“The Haunted History of Halloween,” “The Real Story of Halloween”), in Time Magazine, Slate, and National Geographic, and has given talks at venues as diverse as the 2000 Halloween Convergence in New Orleans and the St. Louis Art Museum. She contributed the Halloween article to World Book Encyclopedia. Most recently, she, with many compatriots, held the Guinness World Record for “Largest Halloween Gathering,” from October 2007-09.

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