{"id":1592,"date":"2011-10-25T10:50:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T14:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2011-10-25T10:50:45","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T14:50:45","slug":"our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html","title":{"rendered":"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A fascinating "underground history" of America<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m not much of a horror film aficionado, but of course I enjoy some of the darker sci fi, like the feminist fairy tale that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I was intrigued to pick up the new book Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting<\/a> by W. Scott Poole.<\/p>\n

This study is one of the great examples of the successful “scholarly trade” book — on the one hand, it’s a fluid read, it tackles an engaging subject, and it’s accessible to a broad audience; on the other hand, it draws upon serious scholarship in serious ways. Casting a wide net, Poole traces the history of monsters in America (as he puts it, he takes us “on a wild ride through the darkness of the American past, galloping hard and fast like Ichabod Crane . . . in hopes we can reach the bridge in time”).<\/p>\n

Did you know that folks during the Enlightenment were fixated on the mastodon? That post-WWII monster movies reveal as much about our cultural anxieties about burgeoning female sexuality as they do about our terror of atomic technology?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The story of monsters, Poole rightly observes, is actually the “underground history of the United States . . . . American monsters are born out of American history.” Monsters reveal what simultaneously enthralls and repels us, whether it’s leviathanesque sea monsters off the shores of 17th-century New England or Stephenie Meyer’s puritanical, defanged Edward Cullen addressing contemporary America’s split-personality longing for a supersexy Ozzie-and-Harriet family.<\/p>\n

I greatly enjoyed this book and would love to assign it to my undergraduate students the next time I teach a course on religion and popular culture in American history. From Salem to Psycho<\/em>, Moby Dick<\/em> to Sookie Stackhouse, Poole’s engaging analysis goes a long way to explaining why we hate monsters but just can’t quit them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not much of a horror film aficionado, but of course I enjoy some of the darker sci fi, like the feminist fairy tale that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I was intrigued to pick up the new book Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,8],"tags":[736,425,22,877,876,875,21,758,874,295,878],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-cultural-commentary","category-television","tag-baylor-university-press","tag-edward-cullen","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-halloween","tag-horror-genre","tag-ichabod-crane","tag-jana-riess","tag-leviathan","tag-monsters-in-america","tag-stephenie-meyer","tag-w-scott-poole"],"yoast_head":"\nOur Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m not much of a horror film aficionado, but of course I enjoy some of the darker sci fi, like the feminist fairy tale that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I was intrigued to pick up the new book Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-25T14:50:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/10\/monsters-in-america-199x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Riess\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading - Flunking Sainthood","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading - Flunking Sainthood","og_description":"I’m not much of a horror film aficionado, but of course I enjoy some of the darker sci fi, like the feminist fairy tale that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I was intrigued to pick up the new book Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html","og_site_name":"Flunking Sainthood","article_published_time":"2011-10-25T14:50:45+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/10\/monsters-in-america-199x300.jpg"}],"author":"Jana Riess","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html","name":"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading - Flunking Sainthood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/10\/monsters-in-america-199x300.jpg","datePublished":"2011-10-25T14:50:45+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-25T14:50:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/10\/monsters-in-america-199x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/10\/monsters-in-america-199x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/10\/our-monsters-ourselves-great-halloween-reading.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Our Monsters, Ourselves: Great Halloween Reading"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/","name":"Flunking Sainthood","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jana Riess","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8","name":"Jana Riess","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","caption":"Jana Riess"},"description":"Jana Riess is the author of Flunking Sainthood, a 2011 book about failing at twelve different spiritual practices. She is also currently working on The Twible, a three-year Twitter project with humorous daily Bible updates for your amusement (find her on Twitter as @janariess). She has a few silly degrees from swanky schools but was never once able to climb the rope in gym class. Her spiritual director is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/author\/jriess"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}