The Supernatural Revamped : From Timeworn Legends to Twenty-First-Century Chic

This title presents the supernatural as a truly international phenomenon, not restricted to the original folk characters, their literary representations, or popular media. Instead, we move around the world and into the 21st century, reshaping legends into a post-modern image that is psychologically and socially relevant. This book is the logical continuation of a series of collected essays examining the origins and evolution of myths and legends of the supernatural in Western and non-Western tradition and popular culture. The first two volumes of the series, The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013) and Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic. (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013) focused on the vampire legend. The essays in this collection expand that scope to include a multicultural and multigeneric discussion of a pantheon of supernatural creatures who interact and cross species-specific boundaries with ease. Angels and demons are discussed from the perspective of supernatural allegory, angelic ethics and supernatural heredity and genetics. Fairies, sorcerers, witches and werewolves are viewed from the perspectives of popular nightmare tales, depictions of race and ethnicity, popular public discourse and cinematic imagery. Discussions of the "undead and still dead" include images of death messengers and draugar, zombies and vampires in literature, popular media and Japanese anime "This book continues the examination of the origins and evolution of myths and legends of the supernatural in Western and non-Western tradition and popular culture that Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan first considered in The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend and Images of the Modern Vampire: the Hip and Atavistic. The chapters in this collection provide readers with a multicultural and multigeneric discussion of a pantheon of supernatural creatures who cross species-specific boundaries and interact with ease"--Page 4 of cover Review: "This book continues the examination of the origins and evolution of myths and legends of the supernatural in Western and non-Western tradition and popular culture that Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan first considered in The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend and Images of the Modern Vampire: the Hip and Atavistic. The chapters in this collection provide readers with a multicultural and multigeneric discussion of a pantheon of supernatural creatures who cross species-specific boundaries and interact with ease."