David Wojnarowicz’s Christ: Symbols of Hope, Corruption, and Violence
Disney’s Christopher Robin and the Idolatry of Work
Daniel Anderson Tragically, Christopher Robin’s life seemingly proves Adorno’s adage that a “wrong life cannot be lived rightly.”
Tortured for Christ in Trump’s America
Jason Bruner Wurmbrand’s fierce apologetics in Tortured for Christ against communism, which he called “a spiritual force—a force of evil,” weren’t countered with a full-throated endorsement of democracy.
What a Father Learned from Captain Fantastic
S. Brent Plate Captain Fantastic has nothing to do with superheroes, or anything “super” for that matter.
Staking Monsters: Killing the Racist Trope in Horror and Reality
Kelly J. Baker How do we create monsters? And ultimately, how do we destroy them?
How the Ouija board got its sinister reputation
Joseph P. Laycock By now, most have vague notions of the Ouija board horror narrative, in which demonic spirits communicate with – even possess – kids…The Ouija board, however, didn’t always have this sinister reputation.
Candomblé Reconsidered: A Sacred Matters Interview
Dianne Stewart In the twenty-first century, increasing populations are becoming aware of the presence of African-heritage religions in the diaspora but we have still much to learn from and about these religions.
“Cannot tell Aught but the Truth”: Photography and Birth of a Nation (1915)
Rachel McBride Lindsey Through plot device, camera technique, and historical conceit, Griffith’s epic story of the triumph of racially defined and providentially guided national unity out of racially contrived sectional chaos leans heavily on the early history of American photography.
Literary Antecedents and Contemporary Reflections of Thomas Dixon’s “The Clansman”
Carolyn M. Jones Medine As The Clansman demonstrates, the Ku Klux Klan was a structure within which white men acted out their vision of southern society and through which they used terror to enforce those visions. The KKK may have been the United States’ first cellular terrorist structure: it was and is covert, local and de-centered, mobile, and opportunistic, multiplying by opportunity and interpersonal connections.
A Dreadful and Improbable Creature: Race, Aesthetics, and the Burdens of Greatness
Judith Weisenfeld The plot of The Birth of a Nation features two intertwined narratives: a political story that moves from national unity to division in war and back to unity, and a romance in which a couple unites despite the obstacles the war presents. The Birth of a Nation is also, of course, a story about the subjugation of people of African descent, a process director D. W. Griffith frames as carried out by honorable white men who had no choice in the face of social chaos.