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The Evolution of Horror in the Twenty-First Century examines the
intimate connections between the horror genre and its audience's
experience of being in the world at a particular historical and
cultural moment. This book not only provides frameworks with which
to understand contemporary horror, but it also speaks to the
changes wrought by technological development in creation,
production, and distribution, as well as the ways in which those
who are traditionally underrepresented positively within the genre-
women, LGBTQ+, indigenous, and BAME communities - are finally being
seen and finding space to speak.
In Reading the Bible with Horror, Brandon R. Grafius takes the
reader on a whirlwind tour through the dark corners of the Hebrew
Bible. Along the way, he stops to place the monstrous Leviathan in
conversation with contemporary monster theory, uses Derrida to help
explore the ghosts that haunt the biblical landscape, and reads the
House of David as a haunted house. Conversations arise between
unexpected sources, such as the Pentateuch legal texts dealing with
female sexuality and Carrie. Throughout the book, Grafius asks how
the Hebrew Bible can be both sacred text and tome of fright, and he
explores the numerous ways in which the worlds of religion and
horror share uncomfortable spaces.
Scholars of religion have begun to explore horror and the
monstrous, not only within the confines of the biblical text or the
traditions of religion, but also as they proliferate into popular
culture. This exploration emerges from what has long been present
in horror: an engagement with the same questions that animate
religious thought - questions about the nature of the divine,
humanity's place in the universe, the distribution of justice, and
what it means to live a good life, among many others. Such
exploration often involves a theological conversation. Theology and
Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination pursues
questions regarding non-physical realities, spaces where both
divinity and horror dwell. Through an exploration of theology and
horror, the contributors explore how questions of spirituality,
divinity, and religious structures are raised, complicated, and
even sometimes answered (at least partially) by works of horror.
Seeing the Apocalypse: Essays on Bird Box is the first volume to
explore Josh Malerman's best-selling novel and its recent film
adaptation, which broke streaming records and became a cultural
touchstone, emerging as a staple in the genre of contemporary
horror. The essays in this collection offer an interdisciplinary
approach to Bird Box, one that draws on the fields of gender
studies, cultural studies, and disability studies. The contributors
examine how Bird Box provokes questions about a range of issues
including the human body and its existence in the world, the
ethical obligations that shape community, and the anxieties arising
from technological development. Taken together, the essays of this
volume show how a critical examination of Bird Box offers readers a
guide for thinking through human experience in our own troubled,
apocalyptic times.
Scholars of religion have begun to explore horror and the
monstrous, not simply within the confines of the biblical text or
the traditions of religion, but also as they proliferate into
popular culture. This exploration emerges from what has long been
present in horror: an engagement with the same questions that
animate religious thought - questions about the nature of the
divine, humanity's place in the universe, the distribution of
justice, and what it means to live a good life, among many others.
Such exploration often involves a theological conversation. This
volume pursues questions regarding non-physical realities, spaces
where both divinity and horror dwell. Through an exploration of
theology and horror, the contributors explore how questions of
spirituality, divinity, and religious structures are raised,
complicated, and even sometimes answered (at least partially) by
works of horror.
Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters explores
the intersection of the emerging field of "monster theory" within
religious studies. With case studies from ancient Mesopotamia to
contemporary valleys of the Himalayas to ghost tours in Savannah,
Georgia, the volume examines the variegated nature of the monstrous
as well as the cultural functions of monsters in shaping how we see
the world and ourselves. In this, the authors constructively assess
the state of the two fields of monster theory and religious
studies, and propose new directions in how these fields can inform
each other. The case studies included illuminate the ways in which
monsters reinforce the categories through which a given culture
sees the world. At the same time, the volume points to how monsters
appear to question, disrupt, or challenge those categories,
creating an 'unsettling' or surplus of meaning.
The tale of the "zeal" of Phineas, expressed when he killed an
Israelite man and a Midianite woman having sex and thus stopped a
"plague" of consorting with idolatrous neighbors in the Israelite
camp (Numbers 25), has long attracted both interest and revulsion.
Scholars have sought to defend the account, to explain it as pious
fiction, or to protest its horrific violence. Brandon R. Grafius
seeks to understand how the tale expresses the latent anxieties of
the Israelite society that produced it, combining the insights of
historical criticism with those of contemporary horror and monster
theory. Grafius compares Israelite anxieties concerning ethnic
boundaries and community organization with similar anxieties
apparent in horror films of the 1980s, then finds confirmation for
his method in the responses of Roman-period readers who reacted to
the tale of Phineas as a tale of horror. The combination of methods
allows Grafius to illumine the concern of an ancient priestly class
to control unsettled and unsettling community boundaries--and to
raise questions of implications for our own time.
In Reading the Bible with Horror, Brandon R. Grafius takes the
reader on a whirlwind tour through the dark corners of the Hebrew
Bible. Along the way, he stops to place the monstrous Leviathan in
conversation with contemporary monster theory, uses Derrida to help
explore the ghosts that haunt the biblical landscape, and reads the
House of David as a haunted house. Conversations arise between
unexpected sources, such as the Pentateuch legal texts dealing with
female sexuality and Carrie. Throughout the book, Grafius asks how
the Hebrew Bible can be both sacred text and tome of fright, and
explores the numerous ways in which the worlds of religion and
horror share uncomfortable spaces.
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