Category Archives: myths

Christopher Knowles: Gods and Geeks in American Pop Culture

August 29th, 2010 | Posted in comics, fan cultures, geek cultures, myths, Paganism, pop culture, superheroes

Patheos is a website that presents information on a variety of religious traditions. Over the course of the summer months the site has been looking at what the future holds for these religions, and in a recent focus on Paganism an essay was included that dovetails with the focus of TheoFantastique. Christopher Knowles wrote a […]

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Culture, Identities and Technology in the Star Wars Films

July 28th, 2010 | Posted in cultural studies, Joseph Campbell, myths, science fiction, Star Wars

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. With it came a lot of television programming related to the Star Wars series of films, and one included commentary from the editors and contributors to Culture, Identities and Technology in the Star Wars Films: Essays on the Two Trilogies (Critical Explorations in Science […]

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Joseph Laycock: The Legend of Cain and Vampires in the Bible

July 27th, 2010 | Posted in horror, Joseph Campbell, Joseph Laycock, myths, vampire

Joseph Laycock continues to demonstrate that he is the up and coming religion and vampire scholar for the next generation. He recently wrote an article for Religion Dispatches titled “Vampire Bible: Will Smith and The Legend of Cain.” The article begins with the recent announcement that Will Smith will play the Old Testament biblical character […]

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Gary Varner: Creatures in the Mist and Comparative Mythology

June 7th, 2010 | Posted in cryptozoology, folklore, myths

Mythologist and folklorist Gary Varner was a recent guest here answering questions about the origins, history, and expressions of gargoyles and grotesques. He has researched a variety of subjects and is the author of Creatures in the Mist: Little People, Wild Men and Spirit Beings around the World: A Study of Comparative Mythology (Algora Publishing, […]

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Jewish Monstrosity

April 19th, 2010 | Posted in folklore, Jewish monsters, Judaism, monsters, myths

For those who may have come to this post via a search engine or link on a website or blog expecting to find something anti-Semitic you’ll be disappointed. Instead, I want to draw the reader’s attention to the recent discussion of various monsters from Jewish folklore, religion, and myth. In the West we tend to […]

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Whitt and Perlich: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Millennial Mythmaking

January 10th, 2010 | Posted in Joseph Campbell, myths, pop culture, science fiction

In the past I had an opportunity to interview David Whitt and John Perlich with the first book they co-edited, Sith, Slayers, Stargates and Cyborgs: Modern Mythology and the New Millennium (Peter Lang Publishers, 2007). Dr. David Whitt is Associate Professor of Communication at Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Dr. John Perlich is Associate Professor of […]

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Millennial Mythmaking

November 30th, 2009 | Posted in fantasy, Joseph Campbell, myths, science fiction

One of the great things about having a website like this is discovering people engaged in the same kinds of reflections on the fantastic in pop culture that I am involved in. It gets even better when I get to develop relationships with these people, and then discuss their thinking. This is the case with […]

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Guillermo del Toro: Visionary Fantasy and Mythic Filmmaker

December 26th, 2008 | Posted in archetypes, fantasy, Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy, myths

Given that my family has shifted in the last couple of years to opening Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, and that the vast majority of the gifts that I receive are related to the genres of the fantastic, I really do have a Nightmare Before Christmas. One of my gifts this year has been especially […]

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The Otherkin: Fantastic Texts, Pop Culture, and Neo-Religiosity

September 17th, 2008 | Posted in Adam Possamai, cultures, fantasy, hyper-real spiritualities (or fiction-based), Jediism, Matrixism, myths, Neo-Paganism, occulture, Otherkin, pop culture

At times the lines between fact and fiction are blurred when it comes to the fantastic in popular culture and identification with the various characters and creatures that inhabit it. At times the lines are not so much blurred as they are dissolved. Christopher Partridge speaks of “fact-fiction reversals” that exist, and that as a result […]

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Cylons in America: Interview with Editors of New Book on the Battlestar Galactica Series

May 25th, 2008 | Posted in Battlestar Galactica, myths, science fiction

In a previous post I let readers know about a relatively recent book titled Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica (Continuum Publishing Group, 2007), which won the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s award for Best Edited Collection on Popular Culture for 2008. The book is edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, […]

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