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Lurking Under the Surface
Religion and horror, while seemingly at odds with each other, are expressions of the same human anxieties and hopes, and frequently reach the same destination via different paths. With these important areas of overlap, horror and religion can interpret and challenge each other--and us, in the way we live our personal lives.
Reading the Bible with Horror
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.
The Witch
Robert Eggers' The Witch (2015) is one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of recent years, praised as a genre film of unusual depth which eschews jump scares in favour of a gradually and steadily building tension. Set in newly colonized New England in the early seventeenth century, the film’s deep historical and mythological background, as well as its complicated and interlocking character arcs, make for a film whose viewers will be well served by this Devil’s Advocate, the first stand-alone critical study of the film. As well as providing the historical and religious background necessary for a fuller appreciation, including an insight into the Puritan movement in New England Brandon Grafius situates the film within a number of horror sub-genres (such as folk horror) as well as its other literary and folkloric influences.
Witch
Robert Eggers' The Witch (2015) is one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of recent years, praised as a genre film of unusual depth which eschews jump scares in favour of a gradually and steadily building tension. Set in newly colonized New England in the early seventeenth century, the film's deep historical and mythological background, as well as its complicated and interlocking character arcs, make for a film whose viewers will be well served by this Devil's Advocate, the first stand-alone critical study of the film. As well as providing the historical and religious background necessary for a fuller appreciation, including an insight into the Puritan movement in New England Brandon Grafius situates the film within a number of horror sub-genres (such as folk horror) as well as its other literary and folkloric influences.
Reading Phinehas, Watching Slashers
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.
Horror Comics and Religion
While many genres offer the potential for theological reflection and exploration of religious issues, the nature of horror provides unique ways to wrestle with these questions. Since the EC Comics of the 1950s, horror comics have performed theological work in ways that are sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, but frequently surprising and provocative. This collection brings together essays covering the history of horror comics, from the 1950s to the present, with a focus on their engagement with religious and theological issues. Essays explore topics such as the morality of the EC Comics, cosmic indifference in the works of Junji Ito, the reincarnated demons of the web-comic "The Devil is a Handsome Man," religion and racial horror in comic voodoo, and much more.
Here be Dragons
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Theology and Horror
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.
Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous
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 Forbidden Body
"Throughout history, the religious imagination has attempted to control nothing so much as our bodies: what they are and what they mean; what we do with them, with whom, and under what circumstances; how they may be displayed-or, more commonly, how they must be hidden. Religious belief and mandate affect how our bodies are used in ritual practice, as well as how we use them to identify and marginalize threatening religious Others. This book examines how horror culture treats religious bodies that have stepped (or been pushed) out of their 'proper' place. Unlike most books on religion and horror, This book explores the dark spaces where sex, sexual representation, and the sexual body come tog...
