Joseph Laycock

Joseph Laycock is an assistant professor of religious studies at Texas State University. In addition to Speak of the Devil (Oxford University Press, 2020), his books include The Seer of Bayside: Veronica Lueken and the Struggle for Catholic Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Religion, Play, and Imagined Worlds (University of California Press, 2015).

(A)theologies, Politics/LawJune 23, 2009

Mexico’s War on Saint Death

By Joseph Laycock

The Mexican government has demolished dozens of shrines to Santa Muerta, claiming that the worship of this skeletal woman in a white cloak is a “narco-cult.” As resistance grows, so does this new religious movement.

CultureJune 10, 2009

True Blood: When Marketing Goes For the Jugular

By Joseph Laycock

An HBO show about vampires in the rural South depends on “viral marketing” for its buzz. But some people resent the conflation of fact and fiction that this kind of advertising entails. And what of the new religious movement known as the Vampire Community?