The Supernatural in Contemporary Society Conference was held in August of 2018. The conference description:
The media reports ghostly encounters, supernatural TV and films continue to be popular genres, and professionalised groups and organisations offer commercial experiences of the otherworldly. It seems that regardless of scientific progress and rationale thought, the allure of the extraordinary still prevails.
The Supernatural in Contemporary Society Conference (SCSC) aimed to explore the continuing role of the supernatural. SCSC intends to provide an interdisciplinary forum to discuss current and emerging research, and examine these in relation to the impact and value this has on culture, heritage and tourism. In addition, industry professionals were invited to discuss current and emerging issues.
SCSC invited contributions from across disciplines that explore issues in relation to the following themes:
The supernatural in tourism, travel and events: addressing forms of the supernatural in tourism, travel and events, and its impact on heritage, place and community.
The supernatural in media, journalism and popular culture: investigating the role of the media and journalism in reporting and engaging with supernatural encounters and belief
The supernatural as profession and subculture: exploring the prevalence of contemporary and professionalised groups, individuals and organisations dedicated to researching and experiencing the supernatural.
Videos from the lectures are now available. Unfortunately, none of them can be embedded, but I have reproduced the list below. Access the site here and click to views those of interest.
Dr Rachael Ironside – Welcome and Introduction
Professor Dennis Waskul – Let’s Summon Demons! The Promise of the Supernatural (Keynote)
John Sabol – Time, Social Compass, and the Return: Relevant Revenants as Intangible Cultural Heritage
Professor Peter Reid – The ancient dame, the given ground and the quaking fever: the enduring legacy of witchcraft and superstition in the fishing communities of North-East Scotland
Dr Andrea Kitta – Slender Man and the Unacknowledged Common Experience of the Supernatural
Dr Tom Clark – The Devil rides in: ‘Cinematic Satanism’, ‘the swinging sixties’, and the idea of evil in civil society
Dr Derek Johnston – Understanding History and Causality through the Television Ghost Story
Hayley Lockerbie & Dr Graeme Baxter – “Blood has been spilt on that spot”: exploring the relationship between the supernatural and the library and information sciences
Dr Eva Kingsepp – Ghosts, extraterrestrials and re-enchantment: Possibilities and challenges in regional tourism
Dr David Clarke – “What’s all this stuff about flying saucers?”: Extraordinary personal experiences from The National Archives UFO Project (Keynote)
Professor Christopher Bader – Science or Religion? Framing within the Bigfoot Subculture.
Filip Andjelkovic – Haunted Houses, Haunted Minds: Psychical Research, psychoanalysis, and the Philip Experiment
Dr Jack Hunter – Anomalistics and Ecology: Exploring the Threads
Alicia Edwards – A guide to the geography of Ghostland: Ghost Tourism Narratives and the Mapping of ‘Haunted London’
Dr Terence Palmer – Supernatural Experiences in the Hospital Environment
Dr Leo Ruickbie – Victorian Ghost Hunters in the 21st Century: Conflict, Continuity and the Society for Psychical Research
Paula Fenn – The Liminality of Modern Day Exorcists
My friend and colleague, Doug, Cowan, has been prolific lately with his books. One of his latest is now available for pre-order:
Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroess looks at fantasy film, television, and participative culture as evidence of our ongoing need for a mythic vision—for stories larger than ourselves into which we write ourselves and through which we can become the heroes of our own story. Why do we tell and retell the same stories over and over when we know they can’t possibly be true? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because pop culture has run out of good ideas. Rather, it is precisely because these stories are so fantastic, some resonating so deeply we elevate them to the status of religion. Illuminating everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dungeons and Dragons, and from Drunken Master to Mad Max, Douglas E. Cowan offers a modern manifesto for why and how mythology remains a vital force today.
Of God and Monsters
April 4th – 6th 2019
Texas State University San Marcos, TX
Judith Halberstam famously claimed that monsters are “meaning machines” that can be used to represent a variety of ideas, including morality, gender, race, and nationalism (to name only a few). Monsters are always part of the project of making sense of the world and our place in it. As a tool through which human beings create worlds in which to meaningfully dwell, monsters are tightly bound with many other systems of meaning-making like religion, culture, literature, and politics. Of Gods and Monsters will provide focused space to explore the definition of “monster,” the categorization of monsters as a basis of comparison across cultures, and the relationship of monsters to various systems of meaning-making with the goal of understanding how humans have used and continued to use these “meaning machines.”
The Religious Studies program at Texas State University, therefore, welcomes submissions for our upcoming conference on Monsters and Monster Theory. Through this conference, we hope to explore the complex intersections of monsters and meaning making from a variety of theoretical, academic, and intellectual angles. Because “monsters” are a category that appears across time and cultural milieus, this conference will foster conversations between scholars working in very different areas and is not limited in terms of cultural region, historical time, or religious tradition. As part of fostering this dialogue, conference organizers are thrilled to announce that Douglas E. Cowan will serve as this event’s keynote speaker, while archival researcher and cryptid expert Lyle Blackburn will offer a second plenary address. Conference organizers anticipate inviting papers presented at this conference to submit their revised papers for an edited volume.
If interested, please submit an abstract with a maximum of 300-words to TexasStateMonsters@gmail.com by November 1st, 2018. Final decisions on conference participation will be sent out by the first week of December. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact conference organizers Natasha Mikles (n.mikles@txstate.edu) or Joseph Laycock (joseph.laycock@txstate.edu).
S. Brent Plate has an interesting article at The Revealer titled “Battling our Demons, On Screen and Off.” The byline summarizes the thrust of the article in its discussion of “fighting the demonic stereotypes rampant in contemporary media.”
In the twenty-first century, as in centuries past, stories of the supernatural thrill and terrify us. But despite their popularity, scholars often dismiss such beliefs in the uncanny as inconsequential, or even embarrassing. The editors and contributors to The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History have made a concerted effort to understand encounters with ghosts and the supernatural that have remain present and flourished. Featuring folkloric researchers examining the cultural value of such beliefs and practices, sociologists who acknowledge the social and historical value of the supernatural, and enthusiasts of the mystical and uncanny, this volume includes a variety of experts and interested observers using first-hand ethnographic experiences and historical records.
The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History seeks to understand the socio-cultural and socio-historical contexts of the supernatural. This volume takes the supernatural as real because belief in it has fundamentally shaped human history. It continues to inform people’s interpretations, actions, and identities on a daily basis. The supernatural is an indelible part of our social world that deserves sincere scholarly attention.
There is a new trailer for a new zombie film, The Cured. It shows evidence of being influenced by the BBC television series In the Flesh, and follows an approach to this subgenre of horror wherein the alien “Other” is explored as they attempt to fit in or reintegrate with the normal “Us.” For my interests and money this is far more interesting than standard zombie survival horror fare.
The witch as a cultural archetype has existed in some form since the beginning of recorded history. Her nature had changed through technological developments and sociocultural shifts–a transformation most evident in her depictions on screen.
This book traces the figure of the witch through American cinematic history with an analysis of the entertainment industry’s shifting boundaries concerning expressions of femininity. Focusing on films and television series from The Wizard of Oz to The Craft, the author looks at how the witch reflects alterations of gender roles, religion, the modern practice of witchcraft, and female agency.
What makes you afraid? It may be more than what you think. Horror films have been exploiting our fears almost from the moment movies were invented. Lurking unseen in the corner of horror, however, is something unexpected: the Bible. Sit back while the curtain parts and watch as the Good Book appears in both supporting and starring roles in the most unlikely of cinema genres. Starting with Psycho and running up through the 2010s, horror films, monster movies and thrillers will flash across the screen with Scripture plainly in view. Holy Writ is not always what it seems. The Bible not only attempts to ward off evil, it often becomes a source of fear itself. Aliens, ghosts, witches, psychopaths, and especially demons haunt these pages as the Bible attempts to hold them at bay. Movies are a window into what people really believe. In a culture of high biblical awareness and low biblical literacy, horror movies become authentic sources of belief. In this book Steve A. Wiggins explores how it looks if we take seriously what horror tells us about the Good Book, as he brings together two unlikely subjects and shows how scary the Bible can be.
Aliens, flying saucers, ESP, the Bermuda Triangle, antigravity … are we talking about science fiction or pseudoscience? Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference.
Both pseudoscience and science fiction (SF) are creative endeavours that have little in common with academic science, beyond the superficial trappings of jargon and subject matter. The most obvious difference between the two is that pseudoscience is presented as fact, not fiction. Yet like SF, and unlike real science, pseudoscience is driven by a desire to please an audience – in this case, people who “want to believe”. This has led to significant cross-fertilization between the two disciplines. SF authors often draw on “real” pseudoscientific theories to add verisimilitude to their stories, while on other occasions pseudoscience takes its cue from SF – the symbiotic relationship between ufology and Hollywood being a prime example of this.
This engagingly written, well researched and richly illustrated text explores a wide range of intriguing similarities and differences between pseudoscience and the fictional science found in SF.
Andrew May has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in astrophysics from Manchester University. After many years in academia and the private sector, he now works as a freelance writer and scientific consultant. He has written pocket biographies of Newton and Einstein, as well as contributing to a number of popular science books. He has a lifelong interest in science fiction, and has had several articles published in Fortean Times magazine
The Supernatural in Contemporary Society Conference was held in August of 2018. The conference description:
Of God and Monsters
S. Brent Plate has an interesting article at The Revealer titled 
I am busy co-editing a volume on the paranormal in popular culture for Routledge and came across this forthcoming volume.
