GOLEM: Journal of Religion and Monsters (Back issue 2006)

Spring 2006, Volume 1: Issue 1

FROM THE EDITOR'S KEYBOARD

Welcome! This inaugural issue of GOLEM: Journal of Religion and Monsters illustrates the ways in which our perception of anomaly is really a mirror reflecting ourselves. The main section of GOLEM explores four fascinating sites revolving around monstrous, hybrid bodies that elicit nagging questions regarding self-identity and social order.

Writing on Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Rebecca Raphael argues that the title character is constructed as a monster through double strategies of anomalous embodiment: first, as a disabled person whose non-normative body challenges the assumed equality inherent in liberal democratic theories, and second, as a cyborg who exists uneasily at the organic-machine boundary, signaling contemporary anxieties over the global nuclear military apparatus. In “The Doomsday Body, or Dr. Strangelove as Disabled Cyborg,” Raphael draws on insights from anthropology, literary criticism, and disability studies to weave her nuanced analysis, exploring the film as a secular apocalypse that transposes ancient motifs into a sharp twentieth century commentary on nuclear and social anxieties.

Michael W. DeLashmutt proposes a theological critique of another human-machine boundary, posthumanity, in “Immanaence for Transcendence: Confronting the Techno-Theological Eschatology of Posthuman Speculative Science.” Using a Christian hermeneutical lens particularly indebted to Tillich, DeLashmutt evaluates the spectrum of dis- or re-embodied future humanity envisioned by posthuman speculative scientists Hans Moravec, Frank Tipler, and Ray Kurzweil. As DeLashmutt frames it, the issue turns on whether posthumanism represents the spiritual evolution of humanity and machine or the monstrous. His theological appraisal takes us squarely into questions of ultimate concern: the nature of divinity, spirit, eschatology, death, and social justice.

As in Raphael’s opening piece, disabled bodies are also a central concern in Kent Brintnall’s “The Moral Demand of the 'Loving Cup:' The Presence of the Abject Body in Tod Browning’s Freaks and the Christian Eucharist.” Brintnall employs Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject to tackle the controversial film Freaks (1932), which casts real-life circus side-show freaks in a tale about rejected community. Brintnall contends that the film, which eventually won critical acclaim and cult status, uncomfortably situates the audience in a changing relationship to the exceptional body, which is variously configured as abject and monstrous. In particular, he maintains the “wedding-banquet” scene recasts the Christian eucharist so as to invite the spectators to identify or dis-identify with a particular construction of horror.

Kim Paffenroth tackles another sort of anomalous body in “Religious Themes of George Romero’s Zombie Movies.” By taking the zombie genre seriously as social critique, Paffenroth draws parallels with Dante’s Inferno to show that these movies expose assumptions about morality and social order, as well as about normalcy, intelligence, and agency. His reminders of the violence by and against the zombies highlight the complexities attending the portrayal, reception, and interpretation of filmic monsters, which should make viewers and readers uncomfortable.

We also invite you to read our undergraduate publication section, GREMLIN, which features two insightful articles that examine monsters as a somewhat positive force. Elizabeth Smith’s “Today the Pond, Tomorrow the World: A Look at Frogs as Divine Portent through an Ecological Lens” analyses how the B-movie Frogs (1972) reflects growing ecological concerns of the late 1960’s and early 70’s and uses religious iconography to cast attacks by wildlife on humans as a divine judgment on environmental devastation. In “The Religious Functions of Pokemon,” Mandie Street also contends monsters can be good. She draws on Clifford Geertz’s definition of religion to argue that the Pokemon franchise is a secular religion that empowers children in relation to friendly, controllable monsters.

Finally, our experimental MONSTER TRACKS section, which showcases short contributions to serve as catalysts for further interpretation, contains two interesting reflections on Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. Lindsay Porter investigates Catholicism, superstition and folk religion in relation to the vampire’s and protagonists’ actions, while Kari Thompson argues that Victorian attitudes towards Darwinian evolution lurk in the background of the novel. Other one to two page reflections on Dracula are welcome.

The editorial board of GOLEM hopes you enjoy reading this first issue as much as we have. We greatly welcome your feedback, ideas, suggestions and, of course, your submissions.

- Frances Flannery-Dailey, Founding and Senior Editor

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Volume 1, Issue 1 (2006, Spring)

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Rebecca Raphael , The Doomsday Body, or Dr. Strangelove as Disabled Cyborg

Abstract: This paper analyzes Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick 1964) as a 20 th Century apocalypse in which human-machine mixture provides the central dualism. Unlike ancient apocalypses, however, the film does not attribute good or evil to either pole of its central dualism. Instead, the conflicting desires for purity, General Ripper’s for organic and the Soviet’s for mechanical, drive the action to global thermonuclear war. Using cyborg, disability, and monster theory, the paper situates the character Dr. Strangelove as the film’s central monster, for he embodies human-machine hybridity and other elements abjected from the liberal-democratic ideal.

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Kent L. Brintnall , The Moral Demand of the “Loving Cup”: The Presence of the Abject Body in Tod Browning’s Freaks and the Christian Eucharist

Abstract: Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) cast real-life circus side-show celebrities in a tale of love, betrayal and revenge. Pulled from theatres soon after its release due to financial losses and critical controversy, it was rediscovered and championed during the 1960s. With the rise of disability studies, the film gained a new scholarly audience. This paper uses Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject to analyze Freaks. Specifically, the paper compares the film’s “wedding banquet” scene and the Christian Eucharist, arguing that both provide opportunities for the spectator/participant to reflect on and renegotiate their relationship to the abject.

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Michael W. DeLashmutt, Immanence for Transcendence: Confronting the Techno-Theological Eschatology of Posthuman Speculative Science

Abstract: Posthuman speculative science, typified by the writings of Hans Moravec, Frank Tipler, and Ray Kurzweil, evinces a faith in technology’s capacity to transform the future destiny of humankind. For these thinkers technology, and in particular information technology, will provide the means by which present-day humanity or its descendents will participate in their posthuman evolution, thus ushering in an eschatological kingdom marked by the end of human and cosmic finitude. This paper will critique the implied techno-theology of this posthuman eschatology and offer as its counterpoint a theology of technology informed by a Christian hermeneutical framework.

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Kim Paffenroth, Religious Themes of George Romero’s Zombie Movies

Abstract: The zombie movies of George A. Romero can be seen as an updated version of Dante’s Inferno, giving modern believers or secularists a vision of damnation as endless, sterile, mindless repetition, and offering some glimpses of how one might avoid such a fate. Besides Romero’s paradigmatic zombie movies, passing reference will be made to the films of other directors, especially 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004).

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GREMLIN:

Student Publication Section

Today the Pond, Tomorrow the World: A Look at Frogs as Divine Portent through an Ecological Lens
(Elizabeth Smith)

Abstract: This paper examines the 1972 horror movie Frogs as a contemporary tale of eco-monsters reflecting the ecological concerns of the early 1970’s. The monsters of this film turn out not to be the monstrous creatures of the wild that repeatedly attack humans, but rather the humans who threaten nature in the first place. Religious imagery reinforces the suggestion that the wildlife is sacred.

The Religious Functions of Pokemon
(Mandie Street)

Abstract: Relying on the definition of religion offered by C. Geertz, this paper examines the nature and success of the Pokemon franchise in terms of its functions as a secular religion. The author finds that the main contribution of the Pokemon universe is the presentation of monsters in a demythologized, friendly fashion that allows children to gain self-confidence through their control of fictional supernatural beings.

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MONSTER TRACKS:

Bram Stoker's DRACULA

Monster Track: Evolving Fears
(Kari Thompson)

Monster Track: Catholicism, Dracula, and the Forces of Darkness
(Lindsay Baldwin Porter)

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GOLEM: Journal of Religion and Monsters (Back issue 2007)

Spring 2007, Volume 2: Issue 1

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Volume 2, Issue 1 (2007, Spring)

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FROM THE EDITOR'S KEYBOARD

In the insightful work Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, anthropologist David Gilmore boldly concludes, “our monsters are our innermost selves” (194). The “our” in Gilmore’s claim is society, or at least the collective psychologies that construct society; the “monsters” are the hybrid creatures whose physiologies speak to what Elaine Graham calls the dissolution of the ‘ontological hygiene’ (11). This second volume of the GOLEM journal vividly illustrates the ways in which the challenging bodies and behaviors of monsters shed light on the particular societies and cultures that imagine them.

In our first article, “Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of a Religious Parody,” Gavin Van Horn and Lucas Johnston perceptively analyze the Internet and media phenomenon “the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” a mischievous creation of author Bobby Henderson offering an implied and severe critique of “intelligent design.” Van Horn and Johnston find that the FSM is so effective in assailing the religious controversy precisely because of the power of humor and parody, the Bakhtinian “carnival idiom” (11, 13). They highlight the ways in which the unsettling absurdities of monsters translate into an incisive humor that directly comments on similarly absurd social realities.

Monsters exist in every historical period and culture. In our second feature piece, “Smiting Goliath: Giants as Monsters in the Ancient Near East,” Paul B. Thomas argues that the recurrent mythic character of the ancient “giant” functions as a monster. This, Thomas argues, necessitates a reworking of the prevailing scholarly definitions of monsters in ancient Near Eastern cultures. His structuralist analysis of the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17 is compelling and lends much to the interpretation of the biblical passage, in addition to illuminating the study of monsters or teratology.

Thirdly, in “Do I Look Like Someone Who Cares What God Thinks?’ Rethinking the Relationship between Religions and Cinema Horror,” Douglas Cowan takes cinema horror seriously as an expression of both religious themes and sensibilities. Why does this film genre flourish and what is its enduring appeal for some audiences? Through the analytical lens of “sociophobics,” Cowan argues that the popularity of horror movies stems from its refraction of numerous societal fears, particularly social ambivalence towards religion in a postmodern period.

Finally, our student publication section, GREMLIN, features a complementary piece by Nathan Shinn of Hendrix College. Shinn explores several ancient Near Eastern “wild men,” including Enkidu, Adam and Goliath, whose physiologies and behaviors mark the boundaries dividing civilization and nature in Mesopotamian and Israelite cultures.

We hope you enjoy these explorations of diverse monsters - a flying creator ball of pasta, ancient Near Eastern giants, the frightening denizens of horror cinema, and hairy wild men of the ancient Near East. Each monster functions, whether by means of parody, mythic narrative, or fear, as a blurry mirror for a particular society.

In closing, I am very pleased to announce that Rubina Ramji of Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada, is the new Senior Editor of GOLEM. Ruby brings a new perspective and a wealth of experience through her work with the Religion, Film and Visual Culture Group of the American Academy of Religion. She may be reached at: ruby_ramji@cbu.ca. Welcome Ruby!! I wish to extend my deep thanks to the editors, contributors and readers of GOLEM and GREMLIN. I also would like to announce a change of affiliation for myself, as I begin as Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism in the Dept. of Philosophy and Religion at James Madison University in Virginia (www.jmu.edu/philrel). Along with Ruby, I will be happy to continue to take questions about current issues and/or submissions for the next issue. We hope you enjoy these fascinating explorations of monsters and the societies that produce them.

- Frances Flannery, James Madison University, Founding Editor of GOLEM.

Bibliography:

• Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Hélène Iswolsky, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
• David Gilmore. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
• Graham, Elaine L. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

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GOLEM

Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2007)

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Gavin Van Horn and Lucas Johnston, Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of a Religious Parody

Abstract: The role that religious understandings should play in the science classrooms of public schools has been particularly contentious in some parts of the United States, and has thus become a target for the recently-invented Flying Spaghetti Monster. Though many monsters may inspire terror or serve as scapegoats for internal psychological or external cultural conflicts, monsters can also inspire laughter. This laughter may be no less subversive than terror, calling attention to and mischievously ridiculing mythic narratives, beliefs, and widespread cultural faiths that are held sacred. By inserting a faceless ball of pasta into a creation narrative considered sacred by many Americans, through subtle sexuality, and patent absurdity, the Flying Spaghetti Monster aims to confound those who believe metaphysical explanations should be actively taught in science classrooms alongside evolutionary theory, and it offers a potent example of how monstrous humor can be used as a tool of playful subversion.

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Paul B. Thomas, Smiting Goliath: Giants as Monsters in the Ancient Near East

Abstract: This article begins by examining the definition of “monster” as commonly employed in ancient Near Eastern studies with the purpose of revealing that the definitions are constructed in a manner that excludes giants. Through a structural analysis of the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17, I demonstrate that giants do function morphologically as monsters. I conclude by constructing a broader definition of “monster” for ancient Near Eastern studies that necessarily includes giants.

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Douglas E. Cowan, "Do I Look Like Someone Who Cares What God Thinks?" Rethinking the Relationship between Religion and Cinema Horror

Abstract: Contrary to much popular and academic opinion, cinema horror is replete with religion. Through the analytic lens of sociophobics, this paper argues that horror movies disclose overwhelming social ambivalence toward the religious traditions, beliefs, practices, and mythic histories which we confront on a daily basis, but only minimally understand.

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GREMLIN:

Student Publication Section

Nathan Shinn, "Boundaries between Wild and Civilized Humans in Near Eastern and Biblical Mythology"