Download or read book Werewolf Complex written by Denis Duclos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. This book was released on 1998-02 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On crime and violence in the United States

Download or read book The Return of Odin written by Richard Rudgley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture • Documents Odin’s role in the rise of Nazi Germany, the 1960s counterculture revolution, nationalist and ecological political movements, and the occult revival • Examines the spiritual influence of Odin in relation to Jesus Christ • Profiles key individuals instrumental in the rise of the modern pagan renaissance Exploring the influence of the Norse god Odin in the modern world, Richard Rudgley reveals Odin’s central role in the pagan revival and how this has fueled a wide range of cultural movements and phenomena, including Nazi Germany, the 1960s counterculture revolution, the Lord of the Rings, the ecology movement, and the occult underground. Rudgley argues that it is Odin and not Jesus Christ who is the single most important spiritual influence in modern Western civilization. He analyzes the Odin archetype--first revealed by Carl Jung’s famous essay on Wotan--in the context of pagan religious history and explains the ancient idea of the Web--a cosmic field of energies that encompasses time, space, and the hidden potentials of humanity—the pagan equivalent to the Tao of Eastern tradition. The author examines the importance of the concept of wyrd, which corresponds to “fate” or “destiny,” exploring techniques to read destiny such as the Runes as well as the existence of yoga in prehistoric and pagan Europe, which later produced the Norse Utiseta, an ancient system of meditation. Rudgley documents how the Odin archetype came into play in Nazi Germany with the rise of Hitler and the pagan counterculture of the 1960s. He examines how the concept of subterranean and mythic realms, such as the Hollow Earth, Thule, and Agartha, and mysterious energies like Vril were manifested in both occult and profane ways and investigates key occult figures like Madame Blavatsky, Guido von List, and Karl Wiligut. He provides pagan analyses of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings and documents the impact the Odin archetype has had on nationalist and fascist groups in America and Europe. Examining pagan groups in Europe and America that use the Norse template, Rudgley reveals true paganism as holistic and intimately connected with the forces at work in the life of the planet. Showing how this “green” paganism can be beneficial for dealing with the adverse consequences of globalization and the ongoing ecological crisis, he explains how, when repressed, the Odin archetype is responsible for regressive tendencies and even mass-psychosis--a reflection of the unprecedented chaos of Ragnarok--but if embraced, the Odin archetype makes it possible for like-minded traditions to work together in the service of life.

Download or read book Transforming Warriors written by Peter Haldén and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers an interdisciplinary study of how different cultures have sought to transform individuals into warriors. War changes people, however a less explored question is how different societies want people to change as they are turned into warriors. When societies go to war they recognize that a boundary is being crossed. The participants are expected to do things that are otherwise prohibited, or at least governed by different rules. This edited volume analyses how different cultures have conceptualized the transformations of an individual passing from a peacetime to a wartime existence to become an active warrior. Despite their differences, all societies grapple with the same question: how much of the individual’s peace-self should be and can be retained in the state of war? The book explores cases such as the Nordic berserkers, the Japanese samurai, and European knights, as well as modern soldiers in Germany, Liberia, and Sweden. It shows that archaic and modern societies are more similar than we usually think: both kinds of societies use myths, symbols, and rituals to create warriors. Thus, this volume seeks to redefine theories of modernization and secularization. It shows that military organizations need to take myths, symbols, and rituals seriously in order to create effective units. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war studies, sociology, religion, and international relations in general.

Download or read book Werewolf Legends written by Willem de Blécourt and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together contributions from anthropologists and folklorists on werewolf legends from all over Europe. Ranging from broad overviews to specific case studies, their chapters highlight the similarities and differences between werewolf narratives in different areas and attempt to explain them. The result of interaction between elite and popular culture, local and external influences, and nature and culture that lasted several centuries or even more, nineteenth- to twenty-first-century werewolf legends represent a kaleidoscope of the darker sides of human life.

Download or read book The Demigod Complex written by Abigail Owen and published by Entangled: Amara. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Lyleia Naiad was head-hunted by Brimstone, Inc., for her job as Executive Assistant to a high-powered billionaire demigod, she was given one directive—do NOT fall in love with Castor Dioskouri. Doesn’t matter if he’s the son of Zeus and can electrify a room with a single glance. As an ex-nymph, she possesses a unique ability—a gift from the goddesses to protect nymphs from the randy gods—to resist her boss's charms. Or so she thought. He insists she accompany him to an alpha wolf shifter mating ceremony, an event where the pheromones fly, and so do clothes...and inhibitions. Goddesses save her, because Castor has stolen into Lyleia’s heart, and she’s not so sure she can hold out much longer... This novella was previously self published but has undergone a complete re-edit. Scenes were added, things were changed, but the kissing still remains! Each book in the Brimstone, Inc. series is STANDALONE: * The Demigod Complex * Shift Out of Luck * Bait N' Witch * Try as I Smite

Download or read book The Nature of the Beast written by Carys Crossen and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The werewolf is an increasingly popular subject of academic study, and several monographs have been published in recent years. Of these, the closest in format and subject matter (e.g. the contemporary werewolf in popular fiction) are as follows: Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006) Brent A. Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013) Kimberly McMahon-Coleman and Rosalyn Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2012)

Download or read book Godhunter written by Amy Sumida and published by Amy Sumida. This book was released on 2013-04-07 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Myth and magic collide in this award-winning, action romance where gods manipulate humans into war, and one witch uses her magic, wits, and unfailing humor to conquer them. Vervain stumbles into the secret world of the Gods when she discovers their plans for humanity. With magic, determination, and pure, dumb luck, Vervain fights back; she begins to hunt the Gods. But not all gods are evil, and Vervain is about to discover one more secret; the Gods are at war. There are rebel gods fighting for the human race, and Vervain is about to become their greatest weapon. Praise for The Godhunter Series: "Smart, sexy, sassy and sweet this story holds adventure and romance, with a well written and witty take on mythology. Read this now!” ~Kevin Sitze "Vervain, her Gods and her men, they breathe in a way that I am unable to describe!" ~Diana Rumbold "They are so good, they should be savored, but instead I binged on them like a kid on Halloween." ~Constand Reader

Download or read book Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture written by Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, shapeshifting characters in literature, film and television have been on the rise. This has followed the increased use of such characters as metaphors, with novelists and critics identifying specific meanings and topics behind them. This book aims to unravel the shapeshifting trope. Rather than pursue a case-based study, the works are grouped around specific themes--adolescence, gender, sexuality, race, disability, addiction, and spirituality--that are explored through the metaphor of shapeshifting. Because of the transformative possibilities of this metaphor and its flexibility, the shapeshifter has the potential to change how we see our world. With coverage of iconic fantasy texts and a focus on current works, the book engages with the shapeshifting figure in popular culture from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Download or read book The Curse of the Werewolf written by Bourgault du Coudray Chantal and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2006-08-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Half-man-half-myth, the werewolf has over the years infiltrated popular culture in many strange and varied shapes, from Gothic horror to the 'body horror' films of the 1980s and today's graphic novels. Yet despite enormous critical interest in myths and in monsters, from vampires to cyborgs, the figure of the werewolf has been strangely overlooked. Embodying our primal fears - of anguished masculinity, of 'the beast within' - the werewolf, argues Bourgault du Coudray, has revealed in its various lupine guises radically shifting attitudes to the human psyche. Tracing the werewolf's 'use' by anthropologists and criminologists and shifting interpretations of the figure - from the 'scientific' to the mythological and psychological - Bourgault du Coudray also sees the werewolf in Freud's 'wolf-man' case and the sinister use of wolf imagery in Nazism. "The Curse of the Werewolf" looks finally at the werewolf's revival in contemporary fantasy, finding in this supposedly conservative genre a fascinating new model of the human's relationship to nature. It is a required reading for students of fantasy, myth and monsters. No self-respecting werewolf should be without it.

Download or read book Deleuze and the Animal written by Colin Gardner and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming-animal is a key concept for Deleuze and Guattari; the ambiguous idea of the animal as human and nonhuman life infiltrates all of Deleuze's work. These 16 essays apply Deleuze's work to analysing television, film, music, art, drunkenness, mourning, virtual technology, protest, activism, animal rights and abolition. Each chapter questions the premise of the animal and critiques the centrality of the human. This collection creates new questions about what the age of the Anthropocene means by 'animal' and analyses and explores examples of the unclear boundaries between human and animal.

Download or read book Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe written by Jonathan Barry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-03-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important collection brings together both established figures and new researchers to offer fresh perspectives on the ever-controversial subject of the history of witchcraft. Using Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic as a starting point, the contributors explore the changes of the last twenty-five years in the understanding of early modern witchcraft, and suggest new approaches, especially concerning the cultural dimensions of the subject. Witchcraft cases must be understood as power struggles, over gender and ideology as well as social relationships, with a crucial role played by alternative representations. Witchcraft was always a contested idea, never fully established in early modern culture but much harder to dislodge than has usually been assumed. The essays are European in scope, with examples from Germany, France, and the Spanish expansion into the New World, as well as a strong core of English material.

Download or read book Why We Kill written by Nancy Loucks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital punishment, serial killings, war, terrorism, abortion, honour killings, euthanasia, suicide bombings, war, and genocide: all involve the taking of life. Put most simply, all involve killing other people. However, cultural context heavily influences heavily how people perceive these acts, and most people reading this paragraph will likely disagree on the extent to which these "count" as killing. For such an evolved species, humans can be violent far beyond the point of humanity. Why We Kill examines this violence in its many forms, exploring how culture plays a role in people’s understanding and definition of violent action. From the first chapter, which examines "conventional" homicide, to the final chapter’s bone-chilling account of the Rwandan genocide, this fascinating book makes compelling reading.

Download or read book Seven written by Richard Dyer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy, Wrath. A serial killer on a warped mission who turns his victims' 'sins' into the means of their murder. Seven (David Fincher, 1995) is one of the most acclaimed American films of the 1990s. Starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Kevin Spacey, Seven is the darkest of films. In it performance, cinematography, sound, and plot combine to create a harrowing account of a world beset by an all-encompassing, irremediable wickedness. Richard Dyer explores the film in terms of of sin, story, structure, seriality, sound, sight and salvation, analyzing how Seven both epitomizes and modifies the serial killer genre, which is such a feature of recent cinema.

Download or read book Lethal Repetition written by Richard Dyer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serial killing is an extremely rare phenomenon in reality that is none-theless remarkably widespread in the cultural imagination. Moreover, despite its rarity, it is also taken to be an expression of characteristic aspects of humanity, masculinity, or our times. Richard Dyer investigates this paradox, focusing on the notion at its heart: seriality. He considers the aesthetics of the repetition of nastiness and how this relates to the perceptions and anxieties that images of serial killing highlight in the societies that produce them. Shifting the focus away from the US, which is often seen as the home of the serial killer, Lethal Repetition instead examines serial killing in European culture and cinema – ranging from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and from Britain to Romania. Spanning all brows of cinema – including avant-garde, art, mainstream and trash – Dyer provides case studies on Jack the Ripper, the equation of Nazism with serial killing, and the Italian giallo film to explore what this marginal and uncommon crime is being made to mean on European screens.

Download or read book Exploring the Fantastic written by Ina Batzke and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2018-03-31 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fantastic represents a wide and heterogeneous field in literary, cultural, and media studies. Encompassing some of the field's foremost voices such as Fred Botting and Larissa Lai, as well as exciting new perspectives by junior scholars, this volume offers a mosaic of the fantastic now. The contributions pinpoint and discuss current developments in theory and practice by offering enlightening snapshots of the contemporary Anglophone landscape of research in the fantastic. The authors' arguments and analyses thus give new impetus to the field's theoretical and methodological approaches, its textual materials, its main interests, and its crucial findings.

Download or read book Death Memorialization and Deviant Spaces written by Matthew Spokes and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we understand the relationship between death and heritage? Using three case studies, Death, Memorialization and Deviant Spaces adapts contemporary spatial theory to develop a new conceptual toolbox, complementing existing work on dark tourism and difficult heritage, to explore the multifarious ways that memorialization functions.

Download or read book Hans Staden s True History written by Hans Staden and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1550 the German adventurer Hans Staden was serving as a gunner in a Portuguese fort on the Brazilian coast. While out hunting, he was captured by the Tupinambá, an indigenous people who had a reputation for engaging in ritual cannibalism and who, as allies of the French, were hostile to the Portuguese. Staden’s True History, first published in Germany in 1557, tells the story of his nine months among the Tupi Indians. It is a dramatic first-person account of his capture, captivity, and eventual escape. Staden’s narrative is a foundational text in the history and European “discovery” of Brazil, the earliest European account of the Tupi Indians, and a touchstone in the debates on cannibalism. Yet the last English-language edition of Staden’s True History was published in 1929. This new critical edition features a new translation from the sixteenth-century German along with annotations and an extensive introduction. It restores to the text the fifty-six woodcut illustrations of Staden’s adventures and final escape that appeared in the original 1557 edition. In the introduction, Neil L. Whitehead discusses the circumstances surrounding the production of Staden’s narrative and its ethnological significance, paying particular attention to contemporary debates about cannibalism. Whitehead illuminates the value of Staden’s True History as an eyewitness account of Tupi society on the eve before its collapse, of ritual war and sacrifice among Native peoples, and of colonial rivalries in the region of Rio de Janeiro. He chronicles the history of the various editions of Staden’s narrative and their reception from 1557 until the present. Staden’s work continues to engage a wide range of readers, not least within Brazil, where it has recently been the subject of two films and a graphic novel.