Daniel C. Taylor begins his book “Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery” with a story about footprints. More specifically, he begins with an account of the pseudoscientification of animal prints (usually snow leopard or bear) in the Himalayas into the now well-worn tales of the abominable snowman said to haunt the reaches of Mt. Everest […]
Fear Itself: Thinking About Vampires and Moral Panics – Part 3 (The Modern Vampire)
The character of the modern vampire is easily observed eliciting an annoyed groan from one only to induce swooning in another. The plastic fangs, black cape, and cartoonish accent, once donned, are enough to spark the recognition of even the youngest Westerner. As a matter of fact, the vampire concept is so commonplace in modern […]
Fear Itself: Thinking About Vampires and Moral Panics – Part 2 (A History of Vampires Briefly)
The Origins of the Vampire, Briefly Although the vampire, by the modern definition of the word, does not occur outright in the writings or mythologies of ancient Greek or Roman authors, there are numerous mentions of various rituals, funeral ceremonies, and spiritual characteristics that demonstrate that the concept of vampirism was not unknown to the […]
Fear Itself: Thinking About Vampires and Moral Panics – Part 1 (Introduction)
(In anticipation of an upcoming article, I’ve decided to begin a short series investigating vampires in media and modern popular culture. Series to follow. Enjoy!) “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture […]
A Trifle Fetish: Some Thoughts on Fandom and the Consecrated Commodity
Conversations about toxic fan culture are popping up everywhere. From the recent Twitter confusion over an account claiming to have the funds and support to remake Star Wars: The Last Jedi (I’m still not 100% convinced it isn’t an elaborate prank) to Gamergate and “fake geek girls” to a group of Rick and Morty fans […]
My Divine Pet Rock: Notes on Humor, Gender, and Authority in Anthropology
“Isn’t He just adorable.” Gangadevi laughed, clutching the small Krishna Govinda Shaligram in her right hand. “I have had Shaligrams for many years but He is special, you see. Krishna was my very first Shaligram. The very first Shaligram I ever dressed or offered praśadam to. The first every morning to received sandalwood tilak and […]
The Chosen One and You
We live in rude times. But for those of use in the United States, an oppressive wave of individualism (culminating in the persona of Donald Trump) has been riding out our cultural commentary and news media for the past several years. Oppressive Individualism is nothing new to the West, however. It’s cropped up before in […]
Ignorance is Not Purity
I saw this article posted on someone else’s page and there are two reasons I am responding to it. 1.) As a scholar of religion who analyzes the use of symbols and practices as a profession and 2.) because I was made deeply happy to see other Christians responding to it critically. We need to […]
The Bad Cultural Appropriation Penny
It’s an old post from Tumblr, but it just keeps turning back up in my social media feeds. Kind of like cultural appropriation. Yes, I’m going to talk about cultural appropriation here but let me actually start at the bottom of this post. We’ll work our way up from there. There’s one aspect of […]
Apocalypse Now and Then
In response to a noticeable number of recent articles and social media posts I’ve been getting; asking some permutation of the question “why does this religion believe/do/espouse this terrible thing?”, I feel the need to reiterate an important point. Let us not forget that religion is distinctly emergent from the people who practice it. Religious […]