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A gripping exploration of belief in the impossible through horror film, informed by philosophy, history, and anthropology.

What if aliens crash-landed at an old mine? What if you discovered your spouse is protecting you from witchcraft? What if you received messages from the dead? You wouldn’t believe it, of course—but you might investigate. As Christopher Bracken shows through this gripping exploration of the horror film, this is the first step toward believing the impossible.

In Believable Impossibilities, Bracken examines the genre in which we are most frequently called on to believe something seemingly impossible has unsettled our ordinary lives—the horror story. Whether on the page or on screen, horror draws us into narratives in which a community of nonbelievers are suddenly confronted with the challenge of believing in events and experiences that radically break with expectation. As Bracken argues, questions of belief often intersect with issues of race and Indigeneity because, historically, belief in the impossible has been racially coded as a trait of “primitive” thought. Drawing on philosophy, anthropology, and psychoanalysis, Bracken explores the fictional spaces in which the paranormal and supernatural challenge and defy our social bonds.

An experimental work of contemporary fiction exploring identity, mythology, and transgressive narrative form.

Rice's parasitical language is akin to the acts of those naked 18th century pirates of desire. In Blood of Mugwump, Rice cannibalizes the likes of Joyce, Faulkner, Burroughs, Eliot, and a whole host of angelic others. Now trapped inside a kinetic body that is always changing from male to female, Doug Rice (the youngest Mugwump) sets out to discover himself in his sister's body. All the while the familial matriarch, Grandma Mugwump, feeds on the flesh of young Doug. Once through the looking glass, Doug realizes that Caddie (his polysexual Faulknerian nightmare of a sister) is more terrifying and holy than the average saint. A frenzied sexual virus, genetically conveyed, mutates and possesses the meat of Doug's and Caddie's bodies forcing them to love each other in unspeakable, yet classical, ways.