W. Scott Poole is a writer and an associate professor of history at the College of Charleston. He is the author of Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and Haunting (October 2011), a work where he uses the monster to explore American anxieties over race, sex, gender, and religious belief. He is the author of five previous books dealing with race, religion and popular culture. He is very proud of his record and comics collection and would get a Bride of Frankenstein tattoo if he were not scared of needles and his mom.
His website is www.monstersinamerica.com
Follow him on twitter @monstersamerica
Features
Monday, October 11 2004
Place as Burden: Please Do Not Vacation in Charleston, South Carolina
In contemporary South Carolina, people seem willing and eager to evoke, rather than to exorcize, the ghosts of the past. Yet if you mention its uglier aspects, you will be told, perhaps by someone dressed in a hoop-skirt and getting ready to lead a tour of a 'two hundred yar old plantation', to 'stop living in the past'.
Columns
Friday, September 30 2011
Chuck Eddy Will Piss You Off with 'Rock and Roll Always Forgets'
Buy this infuriating and brilliant book. But get it in softcover. You'll be throwing it against your wall.
Tuesday, June 28 2005
Do White Folks Get the Blues?
If white folks don't really get the blues, they certainly preserve it, record it, and put together and attend festivals where the music is rightfully celebrated.
Wednesday, April 27 2005
Superman in the Cotton Fields: Comics in Black and White, Mostly White
A racist society is one in which significant political and social capital rests in white hands, even if that society gives lip service and official tribute to the ideals of 'tolerance' and 'diversity'. At least in the marginal art form of comics, African American representations are changing.
Wednesday, March 2 2005
Captain Confederacy: The South in Living Color
The creators of the 'tights and cape' crew that have dominated the comics form for much of its history knew the streets of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn well, but the rural South proved beyond their imagining. 'Captain Confederacy' changed all that.
Wednesday, December 29 2004
Goodbye, Lady in Black
Poole writes of the last Southern 500, Republicans in blue collars, and why it's still the economy, stupid.
Reviews
Friday, February 3 2012
Grave Robbing, Murder and a Few Laughs: 'Burke and Hare'
I wish I could say this was the triumphal return of a great director rather than just a decent rental.
Friday, January 20 2012
Sometimes a Babysitter Is Not Just a Babysitter: 'Babysitter: An American History'
Miriam Forman-Brunell explores the economic and demographic realities of babysitting... and how the image of the babysitter became a source or fear and fantasy in middle class life.
Tuesday, January 3 2012
Not With a Bang or a Whimper, But With the Roar of the Jungle: 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'
If there is a message here, its not about changing our behavior. Or about giving money to the humane society or even PETA. Its about evolution's decision to end us.
Tuesday, December 13 2011
In 'Fright Night' Jerry Will Seduce You, Snack on You and Rip You Apart
Some mistakes and some serious missteps. But the filmmakers made what should be, but won't be, seen as "the" vampire flick of the year.
Tuesday, November 15 2011
The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings
I want werewolves to be the new vampires... I mean the new zombies.
