Spirited Anthropology for Avatars, Heroes, and Assorted Undead

Tim Posada is Chair of Journalism and New Media at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Imprisoned Body: Key Terms for a Spirited AnthropologyChapter 1: The Perfect Body: Captain America in the Realm of FormsChapter 2: The Soulless Body: Watchmen, American Gods, and the Divine UnconsciousChapter 3: The Spirited Body: Pan’s Labyrinth Confronts the Tyranny of DualismChapter 4: The Evil Body: A Good Villain is Hard to DefineChapter 5: The Racialized Body: Get Out as Analogy and Inverted CommentaryChapter 6: The Gendered Body: Imago Dei versus the Male GazeChapter 7: The Fluid Body: Physical Mutation, Psychic EvolutionChapter 8: The Transcendent Body: Ascension, Digital Avatars, and Ghosts in the MachineChapter 9: The Communal Body: The Powers That Be Waltz with Pennywise the Dancing ClownConclusion: The Whole Body: Bending Through Material Reality and the Spirit WorldEpilogue: The Useless Body: Finding Human Value Amidst a (Zombie) PandemicBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Do you love pop culture? Does the witness of Stephen King and Jordan Peele and Guillermo del Toro and the Marvel Cinematic Universe overlap with your own? There’s a word for someone like you. You’re a spirited anthropologist. Good news: You are not alone. With A Spirited Anthropology for Avatars, Heroes, and Assorted Undead, Tim Posada invites us to go deep with our obsessions and to think harder about what our pop culture artisans are showing us about ourselves, others, and God. Turns out there’s data in our binge-watching. Take a look and see.