John Blair

Medieval historian and archaeologist Professor John Blair talks about his latest book, Killing the Dead, the world’s first in-depth account of the widespread mass hysteria known as a vampire epidemic.

Blair ranges from ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day Haiti to explore the macabre belief that corpses wander or do harm from the grave. He uncovers stories of 18th-century Serbian villagers mutilating and burning dead bodies they suspected of vampirism and similar events centuries earlier in England and across the ancient world. Blair says vampire episodes occur at traumatic moments for societies, and they are largely a harmless outlet for fear, hatred and paranoia that would otherwise lead to violence against marginalised groups and individuals.

Blair is emeritus professor of medieval history and archaeology at the University of Oxford and author of Building Anglo-Saxon England, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society and The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction.