Religion, Theology, and Stranger Things

Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope

Andrew J. Byers, Adam J. Powell

• Publisher: Fortress Academic
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978797437
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

Religion, Theology and Stranger Things: Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope brings interdisciplinary analysis to the teeming spiritual side of the hit television series. With chapters from social scientists, historians, theologians, and Biblical scholars, the volume addresses the many different theological, religious, and supernatural themes present in the fictional world of Hawkins, Indiana. From spiritualism to secularism, Mormon gender norms to monsters of abnormality, rock & roll to Dungeons & Dragons, an international list of scholars come together to argue that imaginative realms like the one created by the Duffer brothers can serve to showcase and to scrutinize the common impulses and needs of our culture and ourselves. To venture into the darkness of the Upside Down is to venture into the depths of human experience. This volume explores the shadows and suggests a few paths back into the light.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: Spirits, Monsters, and Supernatural Science
• Chapter 1: Comfort, Control, and Christmas Lights: The Types and Techniques of Spirit Communication in Stranger Things, Season One
• Chapter 2: The Myth of Stranger Things: A Structural Analysis of Monsters and Fears in Season One
• Chapter 3: Defining the Normal: Monstrosity in Stranger Things
• Chapter 4: Enchanted Science? : The Supernatural Imagination of Stranger Things
• Part II: History, (Pop) Culture, and Nostalgic Contexts
• Chapter 5: Who Is Suzie Bingham?: Gender and the 1980s Mormon Family in Stranger Things
• Chapter 6: “Do Not Be Overcome by Evil”: Dungeons, Dragons, and the Satanic Panic in Stranger Things, Season Four
• Chapter 7: Fighting Satan with the Devil’s Music? : Subverting Suspicions of Demonic Influence on Rock ‘n’ Roll in Stranger Things, Season 4
• Chapter 8: Home, Nostalgia, and Stranger Things
• Chapter 9: Utopia, Intertextuality, and Liturgy: Nostalgia and Religion in Stranger Things
• Part III: Theology, Ethics and Biblical Themes
• Chapter 10: “Peeking behind Bauman’s Curtain”: A Theology and Ethics of Institutions in Stranger Things
• Chapter 11: Max and the Magdalene: On Violence, Grief, and Trauma under Patriarchy
• Chapter 12: From Patmos to Hawkins: Slipping through Time and Space in Revelation and Stranger Things
• Chapter 13: Can Anything Good Come Out of Hawkins?: Self, Place, Evil, and Salvation in John’s Gospel, Stranger Things, and the Secular Age
• Afterword
• Index
• About the Editors and Contributors