Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous - by Natasha L Mikles & Joseph P Laycock (Paperback)

About the Book

Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous explores the intersection of monster theory and religious studies. Within these chapters lurk a gamut of strange and demonic creatures from the Bronze Age to contemporary popular culture, illuminating how monsters reflect cultural ways of seeing the world and exist in surplus of named categories.

Book Synopsis

Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous explores the intersection of monster theory and religious studies. Within these chapters lurk a gamut of strange and demonic creatures from the Bronze Age to contemporary popular culture, illuminating how monsters reflect cultural ways of seeing the world and exist in surplus of named categories.

Review Quotes

Because of the wide range of religious perspectives, the book is suitable for anyone interested in the intersection of monster theory and religion. The book could be helpful to students of comparative religion and cross-cultural engagement (missions). Finally, the two chapters on Christianity, in particular, could be beneficial for biblical scholars and Christian theologians.

Mikles and Laycock have gathered an impressive array of scholars to guide readers through stories of ancient Mesopotamia demons, seventeenth-century Japanese ghosts, American Bigfoot hunters, and other astounding and occasionally terrifying tales, revealing how often the monstrous and the religious intersect. Intellectually rigorous and often eminently entertaining, this trailblazing collection provides a much-needed methodological framework for the growing use of monster theory within religious studies.Of Gods and Monsterswill satiate those hungry to articulate why monsters matter and will demonstrate to those unaware why we must attend to these haunting, awe-inspiring junctions

This is a collection Irsquo;ve been waiting on for years. The sacred and the profane have frequently created a unnatural union in our monsters. Scholars of a variety of disciplines have tried to make sense of where these lines meet. This volume, and the incredible collection of scholars found in it, moves beyond some of the iconic studies in the field, changing much of that we think we know about monsters, religion, the sense of the holy, and how all of these intersect in our personal and collective experience. New insights pop on every page and prepare to have older theories autopsied and buried. This book combined academic rigor with a profound sense of the dangerous cultural moment in which it appears, this book will make scholars and monster fans alike rethink what those bumps in the night really mean.

About the Author

Natasha L. Mikles is lecturer at Texas State University
Joseph P. Laycock is associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University