Religion, Theology, and Stranger Things: Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope

Religion, Theology and Stranger Things Studies from the Upside Down on Evil, Ethics, Horror, and Hope brings interdisciplinary analysis to the teeming spiritual side of the hit television series. With chapters from social scientists, historians, theologians, and Biblical scholars, the volume addresses the many different theological, religious, and supernatural themes present in the fictional world of Hawkins, Indiana. From spiritualism to secularism, Mormon gender norms to monsters of abnormality, rock & roll to Dungeons & Dragons, an international list of scholars come together to argue that imaginative realms like the one created by the Duffer brothers can serve to showcase and to scrutinize the common impulses and needs of our culture and ourselves. To venture into the darkness of the Upside Down is to venture into the depths of human experience. This volume explores the shadows and suggests a few paths back into the light.

Andrew J. Byers serves as lecturer in New Testament at Ridley Hall in the Cambridge Theological Federation and as an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.

Adam Powell is a lecturer in medical humanities in the Department of Theology & Religion at Durham University (UK).