Possessed Women, Haunted States

Possessed Women, Haunted States
Author: Christopher J. Olson
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-11-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498519091

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Since the release of The Exorcist in 1973, there has been a surge of movies depicting young women becoming possessed by a demonic force that only male religious figures can exorcise, thereby saving the women from eventual damnation. This book considers this history of exorcism cinema by analyzing how the traditional exorcism narrative, established in The Exorcist, recurs across the exorcism subgenre to represent the effects of demonic possession and ritual exorcism. This traditional exorcism narrative often functions as the central plot of the exorcism film, with only the rare film deviating from this structure. The analysis presented in this book considers how exorcism films reflect, reinforce or challenge this traditional exorcism narrative. Using various cultural and critical theories, this book examines how representations of possession and exorcism reflect, reinforce or challenge prevailing social, cultural, and historical views of women, minorities, and homosexuals. In particular, exorcism films appear to explore tensions or fears regarding empowered and sexually active women, and frequently reinforce the belief that such individuals need to be subjugated and disempowered so that they no longer pose a threat to those around them. Even more recent films, produced after the emergence of third wave feminism, typically reflect this concern about women. Very rarely do exorcism films present empowered women and feminine sexuality as non-threatening. In examining this subgenre of horror films, this book looks at films that have not received much critical scrutiny regarding the messages they contain and how they relate to and comment upon the historical periods in which they were produced and initially received. Given the results of this analysis, this book concludes on the necessity to examine how possession and exorcism are portrayed in popular culture.

The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3, Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3, Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Author: Catherine Spooner
Publisher: Cambridge History of the G
Total Pages: 555
Release: 2021-08-19
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1108472729

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The first volume to provide an interdisciplinary, comprehensive history of twentieth and twenty-first century Gothic culture.

The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3, Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3, Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Author: Catherine Spooner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 555
Release: 2021-08-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108652077

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The third volume of The Cambridge History of the Gothic is the first book to provide an in-depth history of Gothic literature, film, television and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (c. 1896-present). Identifying key historical shifts from the birth of film to the threat of apocalypse, leading international scholars offer comprehensive coverage of the ideas, events, movements and contexts that shaped the Gothic as it entered a dynamic period of diversification across all forms of media. Twenty-three chapters plus an extended introduction provide in-depth accounts of topics including Modernism, war, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, counterculture, feminism, AIDS, neo-liberalism, globalisation, multiculturalism, the war on terror and environmental crisis. Provocative and cutting edge, this will be an essential reference volume for anyone studying modern and contemporary Gothic culture.

Convergent Wrestling

Convergent Wrestling
Author: CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351233963

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This book examines how the current era of "convergence" has affected, and is reflected in, the world of professional wrestling, which combines several different genres, including drama, action, comedy, horror, science fiction, and even romance. Professional wrestling’s business practices exist at the intersection of bottom-up fan-centric strategies and strict top-down corporate control. Meanwhile, the wrestlers themselves combine aspects of carnival hucksters, actors/actresses, comedians, superheroes, martial artists, or stuntmen, and the narratives consist of everything from social critique to geopolitical allegories, and from soap opera melodramas to stereotyped exploitation. Bringing together the latest scholarship in the field, Convergent Wrestling analyzes various texts, business practices, and fan activities to explore the commonalities that define professional wrestling and consider how it exists in today’s new media ecology. In addition, the book considers the professional wrestling industry from several different angles, from massive multinational conglomerate World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to local indie federations. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in popular culture, media and cultural studies, and fan practices.

Law and Religion in the Liberal State

Law and Religion in the Liberal State
Author: Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-05-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509926356

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The relationship between law and religion is evident throughout history. They have never been completely independent from each other. There is no doubt that religion has played an important role in providing the underlying values of modern laws, in setting the terms of the relationship between the individual and the state, and in demanding a space for the variety of intermediate institutions which stand between individuals and the state. However, the relationships between law and religion, and the state and religious institutions differ significantly from one modern state to another. There is not one liberalism but many. This work brings together reflections upon the relationship between religion and the law from the perspectives of different sub-traditions within the broader liberal project and in light of some contemporary problems in the accommodation of religious and secular authority.

The Blaxploitation Horror Film

The Blaxploitation Horror Film
Author: Jamil Mustafa
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2023-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1786839989

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Key Selling Points: · This book is the first to focus upon Blaxploitation horror films, and the first to link these films with both mainstream horror films and classic Gothic novels and stories. · This book provides readers with innovative and thought-provoking analyses of Blaxploitation horror films, conventional horror films, and major works of Gothic fiction. · It considers how Blaxploitation horror films of the 1970s addressed issues of deep concern to their contemporary audiences, including not only racism and the Black Power movement, but also women’s and gay rights, the status of the African American family, the role of religion, and relations between the community and the police.

Theology and Horror

Theology and Horror
Author: Brandon R. Grafius
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978707991

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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.

Catholic Horror on Television

Catholic Horror on Television
Author: Ralph Beliveau
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2024-06-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1666947679

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Catholic Horror on Television: Haunting Faith explores the significant intersection of horror media and the Catholic Church. Religious themes enjoy a long history in film and television, with narratives featuring the supernatural, science fiction, and horror making use of Roman Catholicism in particular. The horror genre frequently tells fantastic stories about the mysteries that we seek to understand, helping to come to terms with the destructive and the monstrous. This book analyzes the genre of Catholic horror in the current television and streaming media environment, exploring its treatment of physical mortality, the metaphysics of meaning, and morality. Catholic Horror on Television: Haunting Faith offers a fresh take on how television and streaming horror series critique, expand, and interrogate Catholicism and its place in the modern world. In doing so, this book contributes to conversations in several disciplines including media, cultural, television, and religious studies.

Demons in the USA

Demons in the USA
Author: Michael E. Heyes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2024-09-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1040135226

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Demons in the USA argues that the discourse on the demonic that developed in the nineteenth century continues to exert a powerful hold over the American spiritual imagination. The book begins by tracing the conservative Christian encounter with Spiritualism in the nineteenth century and the mode of thinking about the demonic which developed. As Spiritualism’s core principles reappeared in the New Age, Christian interlocutors once more drew on this "anti-Spiritualist" paradigm to condemn the movement. This condemnation is absorbed by and amplified through the film The Exorcist. The author considers how the success of the film disseminates the anti-Spiritualist paradigm in surprising ways, entangling it with entertainment, science, and politics such that it influences psychology, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and the contemporary QAnon movement. This entanglement points to the broader argument of the work: While we may wish to think of a film as "entertainment" (and thus, having no bearing on "reality") or demonic material as "religious" (and thus exempt from categories like "politics" or "science"), the truth is that categories are not so easily separated. The author contends that the need to enforce the boundaries of such categories (and the failure to do so) is a hallmark of the intellectual construct of modernity, and that those who believe in demons in the contemporary United States are surprisingly modern in their views. The book grounds the importance of media to the twentieth-and twenty-first- century religious experience, arguing that the United States of today would not be possible without The Exorcist and its products. Demons in the USA will be of particular interest to scholars dealing with religion in America, those with a focus on religion and film, or those involved with contemporary demonology.

Once Upon a Time in a Dark and Scary Book

Once Upon a Time in a Dark and Scary Book
Author: K. Shryock Hood
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018-05-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476633444

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Contemporary American horror literature for children and young adults has two bold messages for readers: adults are untrustworthy, unreliable and often dangerous; and the monster always wins (as it must if there is to be a sequel). Examining the young adult horror series and the religious horror series for children (Left Behind: The Kids) for the first time, and tracing the unstoppable monster to Seuss's Cat in the Hat, this book sheds new light on the problematic message produced by the combination of marketing and books for contemporary American young readers.