13. Juli |  18:00   |  Joseph Vogl (Berlin)

»Area Panic«

Since the 16th century European travelers and colonial officers from East India reported on strange warlike rituals and tactics in which so-called »amucos« were transported by a kind of bloodlust, killed indiscriminately and spread fears of an unbridled war. In correspondence between Western observers and Indian or Malay
natives, a phenomenon took shape that would, hundreds of years later in the form of the »amok« or »running amok«, recur in Western societies as a unique social danger event. The present lecture will be devoted to the early history of the amok, its cultural entanglements and historical transformation.