Category Archives: Titles of Interest

Titles of Interest – Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

September 24th, 2014 | Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, fantasy, fantasy role playing games, games, religion, Titles of Interest

Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds (University of California Press, 2015), by Joseph P. Laycock. The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. Before you read the rest of this article, you might want to […]

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Titles of Interest – “Guillermo del Toro: Film as Alchemic Art”

August 6th, 2014 | Posted in Guillermo del Toro, Titles of Interest

Guillermo del Toro: Film as Alchemic Art, Keith McDonald and Roger Clark (Bloomsbury, 2014) A critical exploration of one of the most exciting, original and influential figures to emerge in contemporary film, Guillermo del Toro: Film as Alchemic Art is a major contribution to the analysis of Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic output. It offers an […]

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Titles of Interest – “The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature”

August 2nd, 2014 | Posted in Paul Meehan, science fiction, Titles of Interest, vampire

Paul Meehan is a friend of TheoFantastique who has been interviewed and contributed guest essays here previously. I am currently reading his latest book for a review in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. The book is The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature (McFarland, 2014). Vampires have been a popular subject […]

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Titles of Interest – Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life

July 13th, 2014 | Posted in fantasy, games, religion, Second Life, Titles of Interest, video games, World of Warcraft

Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life by Robert M. Geraci (Oxford University Press, 2014). Millions of users have taken up residence in virtual worlds, and in those worlds they find opportunities to revisit and rewrite their religious lives. Robert M. Geraci argues that virtual worlds and video games have […]

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Title of Interest – “Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Walking Dead”

June 27th, 2014 | Posted in Titles of Interest, zombie

Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Walking Dead, edited by Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones (McFarland, 2014) Since the early 2000s, zombies have increasingly swarmed the landscape of popular culture, with ever more diverse representations of the undead being imagined. A growing number of zombie narratives have introduced sexual themes, endowing the living […]

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Title of Interest – “Japanese and American Horror: A Comparative Study of Film, Graphic Novels, and Video Games”

June 27th, 2014 | Posted in Japanese horror, Titles of Interest

Japanese and American Horror: A Comparative Study of Film, Graphic Novels, and Video Games by Katarzyna Marak (McFarland, 2014) Horror fiction is an important part of the popular culture in many modern societies. This book compares and contrasts horror narratives from two distinct cultures–American and Japanese–with a focus on the characteristic mechanisms that make them […]

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Title of Interest – “Miyazaki’s Animism Abroad: The Reception of Japanese Religious Themes by American and German Audiences””

June 27th, 2014 | Posted in anime, Titles of Interest

Animism Abroad: The Reception of Japanese Religious Themes by American and German Audiences by Eriko Ogihara-Schuck (McFarland, 2014) After winning an Oscar for Spirited Away, the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films were dubbed into many languages. Some of the films are saturated with religious themes distinctive to Japanese culture. How were these themes, or […]

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Titles of Interest – ‘The Birth of the Dracula Myth: Bram Stoker’s Transylvania’

April 20th, 2014 | Posted in Dracula, Titles of Interest, vampire

I just learned of the following volume, one difficult to find information about online. The following comes from an abstract and other online information by Marius-Mircea Crisjan. The volume Impactul uni mit: Dracula și reprezentarea ficțională a spațiului românesc (The Impact of a Myth: Dracula and the Fictional representation of the Romanian space) is an […]

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Margot Adler’s “Vampires Are Us”

April 5th, 2014 | Posted in Titles of Interest, vampire

Margot Adler has written a volume titled Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side (Weiser Books, 2014). The synopsis and promotional statements include: In a culture that does not do death particularly well, we are obsessed with mortality. Margot Adler writes, “Vampires let us play with death and the issue […]

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Titles of Interest: Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000

December 2nd, 2013 | Posted in Mystery Science Theater 3000, satire, science fiction, television, Titles of Interest

Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000: Critical Approaches (Scarecrow Press, 2013), Shelley S. Rees, editor. First broadcast in the not too distant past on a television station in Minnesota, Mystery Science Theater 3000 soon grew out of its humble beginnings and found a new home on cable television. This simple show about a man and two […]

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