Bücher von Stephen E. Flowers

In the German-speaking regions of Central Europe between about 1880 and 1933 there flourished a group of alternative cultural, social and artistic movements that loosely self-identified as the Lebensreformbewegungen- the Reform of Life Movements. In this book, the author outlines the broad spectrum of these movements and puts them into the general cultural and historical context of the time and place. Personalities such as Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, Fidus, Gusto Gräser, Rudolf Steiner, Hermann Hesse, Ernst Schertel, Magnus Hirschfeld and Friedrich Nietzsche are given special attention. Movements such as Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Ariosophy, Mazdaznan, Nudism (Freikörperkultur), dance-culture, educational reform, the Wandervogel all enjoy special treatments. Many cultural features the Anglo-American culture usually associates with the 1960s and beyond got their start in these German-speaking regions much earlier, e.g. health-food movements, vegetarianism, animal rights activism, environmentalism as well as sexology and sexual reform. Magnus Hirschfeld, the so-called Einstein of Sex, fought for gay-rights and pioneered gender studies and the concept of sexual intermediacy. Also, special attention is given to the origin of the American Hippie movement in connection with these concepts as well as the often-surprising legacy of them among the National Socialists. This book is a comprehensive introduction to a fascinating, yet overlooked, world.

This is a critical thematic study of classic horror and science-fiction films and the literature upon which much of it was based, looked at from the angle of cultural mythologies of the late 19th to early 20thcenturies. It is also in part a memoir of growing up as a Monster Kid during the cultural phase that came to be known as the Monster Craze 1958-1968. Special chapters are devoted to Dracula and Vampires, the Mummy-mythology, the Phantom of the Opera, the Wolf Man and Rites of Passage, Frankenstein, Lovecraft, Edgar A. Poe, Zombies, Cults and Covens, Hanns Heinz Ewers, the films of William Castle, Caligarism and the Trapezoidal Cinema, Ed Wood and finally a section devoted to the more specifically science fiction films of the period. Each section requires its own lens of interpretation based on mythological, psychological and esoteric theories and understandings. Each chapter reveals something ordinarily hidden from observations surrounding the history of this material. The text draws on concepts of folklore, mythology, and the history of religions, as well as psychology and personal experience. This is a hybrid work drawing on a spectrum of disciplines-it is all for fun but only in the most horrifying of ways. Aficionados of the occult, the esoteric, the mysteries of cultural history, and the history of uncanny film and literature will all find something to love in this book. Enter freely and of your own will through the Gothick archways to seek the mysteries within...