André Carrington Ritual, pilgrimage, and ecstasy are not only metaphors when it comes to people’s devotion to cultural texts—these terms are really useful in theories of the practice of making genre traditions.
7 Questions for André M. Carrington
When God Won’t Let You Do the Assignment
Briallen Hopper It’s back-to-school season. Pumpkin lattes are here, school supplies are on sale, and thousands of students are showing up at college and trying to figure out what religion means in their lives. For some students, figuring out faith in college will be a relatively straightforward process that might involve taking a cool-looking religion class, joining a religious student group, or blithely deciding to prioritize sleep over worship services.
Satire, Sacredness, and Questioning the Lasting Political Significance of the “Charlie Hebdo” Shootings
David Feltmate I keep asking myself this question as I read ever more commentary from media pundits and bloggers who are all condemning the killing of 12 people in Paris, France on January 7, 2015: You study religion and satire, can you make sense of this Charlie Hedbo…what do we call it now?
Superhero Afterlife (Abridged)
A. David Lewis is a national lecturer in Comics Studies and an award-winning graphic novelist. He holds a PhD in Religion and Literature from Boston University and is a founding member of Sacred and Sequential. His book, American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife, is now available from Palgrave Macmillan.
Godswap
A. David Lewis Jason Aaron, the current writer of Thor: God of Thunder comic book series for Marvel Comics, posted the following to Twitter on July 17: Aaron’s comment came in the wake of Marvel announcing plans to feature a female Thor starting with a new Issue #1 in October. Over a forty-eight-hour news cycle, mainstream media featured Marvel’s big announcements, both of Thor’s gender swap and of the African-American superhero, the Falcon, assuming the mantle of Captain America in October as well. The View, The Colbert Report, The Wall Street Journal, and many other major news sources echoed what comics […]
Hell Is Coming Here: Cthulhu Cosmology in Hellboy
David McConeghy In the four issues of the Dark Horse Comics mini-series Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (1994), readers meet the titular demon Hellboy, who arrived in the world thanks to a Nazi “Doomsday” ritual led by Russian occult figure Grigori Rasputin. If this sounds familiar, you may have caught the popular 2004 movie adaptation directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Or you may recall the small but persistent interest connecting Hitler and occultism. As fodder for Hollywood blockbusters such as Indiana Jones, Hitler’s desire for religious objects such as the Ark of the Covenant has become an expression of the devotional elements of […]
The Bible in Comics: Genesis
By Beth Davies-Stofka, PhD The Bible was written on scrolls, papyri, and parchment and rendered in languages ancient or dead. For some religious people, it would seem an act of disrespect, if not sacrilege, to translate its stories and lessons into pictures. Yet down the centuries, countless believers have eagerly translated the Bible into art, sculpture, music, and architecture. To encounter the Bible in art is to encounter the reverence, the joy, and even the missionary zeal of the artist. In the most notable examples, we also feel the artist’s curiosity, the will to explore the unexplored dimensions of his […]