The Afterlife in Popular Culture by O'Neill, Kevin;

Short description:

A valuable resource that will give students a fresh look at how Americans view the afterlife, helping readers understand how it's depicted in popular culture.

Long description:

A valuable resource that will give students a fresh look at how Americans view the afterlife, helping readers understand how it's depicted in popular culture.

What happens to us when we die? This book seeks to explore how that question has been answered in American popular culture. It begins with five framing essays that provide historical and intellectual background on ideas about the afterlife in Western culture. These essays are followed by more than 100 entries, each focusing on specific cultural products or authors that feature the afterlife front and center. Entry topics include novels, film, television shows, plays, works of nonfiction, graphic novels, and more, all of which address some aspect of what may await us after our passing.

This book is unique in marrying a historical overview of the afterlife with detailed analyses of particular cultural products, such as films and novels. In addition, it covers these topics in nonspecialist language, written with a student audience in mind. The book provides historical context for contemporary depictions of the afterlife addressed in the entries, which deal specifically with work produced in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Table of Contents:

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Preface
Introduction

Thematic Essays
Plato and Soul/Body Dualism
Resurrection
The Undead, Ghosts, Angels, Demons, and Spirits
Digital Afterlife

A-Z Entries
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
""Afterlife""
""The Afterlife""
The Afterlife of Billy Fingers: How My Bad-Boy Brother Proved to Me There's Life after Death
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Always
American Gods
Anderson, George
Angels in America
Angels in the Outfield
Beetlejuice
Before I Fall
The Bishop's Wife
Black Panther
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Cabin in the Sky
Camille
Carousel
City of Angels
Coco
Constantine
Dead Like Me
Defending Your Life
Dracula
Edward, John
Elsewhere
Everlost
Every Day
Field of Dreams
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Flatliners
For One More Day
Forever
Ghost
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
A Ghost Story
Ghost Town
Ghost Whisperer
The Good Place
Grace: A Novel
The Green Pastures
Groundhog Day
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Heaven Is for Real
Henry, Tyler
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Hereafter
The Horn Blows at Midnight
I Am Legend
I Married an Angel
I Walked with a Zombie
If I Stay
In Heaven as on Earth: A Vision of the Afterlife
It's a Wonderful Death
It's a Wonderful Life
The Kominsky Method
Left Behind (Book Series)
Left Behind (Film Franchise)
""Let the Mystery Be""
Let There Be Light
Life after Death
Lincoln in the Bardo
Long Island Medium
The Lovely Bones
Lucifer
Medium
Michael
Moody, Raymond
My Life after Death
Neal, Mary
""A Nice Place to Visit""
90 Minutes in Heaven
The OA
On the Transmigration of Souls
The Originals
Outward Bound/Between Two Worlds
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Proof of Heaven
The Rapture
Rapture-Palooza
Revival (Comic Book Series)
Revival (Stephen King)
Riverworld
Romero, George
A Rumor of Angels
The Shack
Six Feet Under
The Sixth Man
The Sixth Sense
Sunday Morning Rapture
Thirteen Reasons Why
This Is the End
Touched by an Angel
True Blood
Tuck Everlasting
Twilight
Unlikely Angel
The Vampire Chronicles, Part 1
The Vampire Chronicles, Part 2
The Vampire Diaries
Van Praagh, James
The Walking Dead
Warm Bodies
What Dreams May Come
Where I Want to Be
White Tears
White Zombie
World War Z
Wristcutters: A Love Story
Zombieland

Index