I started planning this book, which became my PhD Thesis, about 5 years ago. It didn't turn out to be exactly what I expected - it's a mashup of Paradise Lost scholarship and a comparative history of the influence Milton's Satan had on politics, art, literature, revolution and social progress over several centuries. It's a response to the bizarrely conservative academic readings of Paradise Lost that continue to be taught in many universities. It's a summary of historical ...
Marvel’s DareDevil TV Series explores the shifting boundaries between villain and hero
This is a (a)theological companion to Marvel's 2015 DareDevil TV Series. The series narrative starts like this: the main hero goes to church to ask forgiveness for what he's about to do. He draws the line at killing people, but both the good guys and the bad guys tell him if he wants to make a difference, to win, he's going to have to start. Throughout Season One, he's wrestling with questions of morality... he's afraid he may be just ...
How Wreck-it Ralph is secretly teaching kids to love Satan
Within just the past decade, there has been a rapid shift in the characterization of the Other – from monstrous, to misunderstood; from frightening to friendly. Thus, vampires, werewolves and witches have changed from being evil creatures of the night, to tragically misunderstood victims of judgmental traditionalist organizations who are constantly challenging their right to exist. In 2012 we even had the movie Wreck it Ralph, in which all the classic “evil” characters from video ...
The link between Paradise Lost and YA post-apocalyptic fiction
I'm working on a paper for an Apocalypse conference in Romania the details are fuzzy, but I wanted to make some notes to come back to later. In short, the majority of contemporary post-apocalyptic YA novels are about Revolution. Unlike classic dystopian fiction like 1984 or even the more modern Never Let Me Go show a reality that can't be escaped from. Resistance is really futile, if not only because systems of bio-power have nullified any ...
Paradise Lost 2013 Movie: Who is the Hero of Milton’s Epic?
***Oops - the movie adaptation of Paradise Lost starring Bradley Cooper has been canned as of February, 2012! It's a crying shame...Hope they revive it down the road.*** For the past decade, traditionally marginalized or "evil" characters have gained the limelight - witches, vampires and werewolves have changed from creatures of the night to tragically misunderstood victims of humanity's bitter prejudice. At the same time, Western humanist values caused us to champion rebel heroes - heroes ...
If you're interested in religious mythology, astrological symbolism, or supernatural folklore, grab my book Gods of Myth and Man. You can 
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