This book discusses two moral panics that appeared in the media in late apartheid South Africa: the Satanism scare and the so-called epidemic of white family murder. The analysis of these symptoms of social and political change reveals important truths about whiteness, gender, violence, history, nationalism and injustice in South Africa and beyond.

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.