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.
Acknowledgments Introduction Barbara Brodman and James E Doan Part One: Ethereals and Terrestrials 1 Of Angels and Demons: Staging the Demise of Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" through Supernatural Allegory C. Austin Hill 2 No More Mr. Nice Angel: Angelic Ethics from Paradise Lost to Supernatural Scott Culpepper 3 The Nightmare Tales of J. S. Le Fanu Paul E. H. Davis 4 Of Fairies and Sorcerers: Dichotomous Depictions of Race and Ethnicity in 1980s Fantasy Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman 5 Philosophers and Demons: Socrates, Descartes and the Search for Certainty Darren Hibbs 6 The Haunting of a Nation: Ghostly Public Discourses and the Making of Caribbean Nationhood Andrea Shaw Nevins 7 An American Werewolf in Trelleborg: Representation of the Werewolf in Swedish Folk Belief and Popular Culture Tommy Kuusela 8 Magic Mexican Modernity: The Shifting Image of Witches and Witchcraft in the Movies Claudia Schaefer and Raul Rodriguez-Hernandez 9 Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy, Supernatural Heredity, and "Creature" Genetics Ashley Szanter Part Two: The Undead and Still Dead 10 An Anime Dullahan: The Irish Death Messenger Adapted in Japanese Popular Culture Masaya Shimokusu 11 Re-dressing Revenants: Anxieties of the Body, the Self and Desire When the Undead Make a Stylish Return Sarah Heaton 12 From Vampires to Zombies: The Revisionist Recreation of I Am Legend Jessica E. Birch 13 Dying to Love You: The Evolution of the Romantic Zombie Simon Bacon 14 Undead Yakuza: The Japanese Zombie Movie, Cultural Resonance and Generic Conventions Kayleigh Murphy and Mark David Ryan 15 "Look at the Flowers": Female Evolution in the Face of the Zombie Hordes of The Walking Dead Cynthia Vinney and Caryn Wiley-Rapoport 16 From White Zombies to Night Zombies and Beyond: The Evolution of the Zombie in Western Popular Culture Todd K. Platts 17 From Saga to Skyrim: The Literary and Multimedia Reception of the Norse-Icelandic Draugr Myth Matthias Teichert Selected Bibliography Index About the Editors and Contributors
