Bøker av John Blair

A riveting history of vampire panics across cultures and down through the millennia—and why killing the dead is better than killing the livingKilling the Dead provides the first in-depth, global account of one of the world’s most widespread yet misunderstood forms of mass hysteria—the vampire epidemic. In a spellbinding narrative, John Blair takes readers from ancient Mesopotamia to present-day Haiti to explore a macabre frontier of life and death where corpses are believed to wander or do harm from the grave, and where the vampire is a physical expression of society’s inexplicable terrors and anxieties.In 1732, the British public opened their morning papers to read of lurid happenings in eastern Europe. Serbian villagers had dug up several corpses and had found them to be undecayed and bloated with blood. Recognizing the marks of vampirism, they mutilated and burned them. Centuries earlier, the English themselves engaged in the same behavior. In fact, vampire epidemics have flared up throughout history—in ancient Assyria, China, and Rome, medieval and early modern Europe, and the Americas. Blair blends the latest findings in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology with vampire lore from literature and popular culture to show how these episodes occur at traumatic moments in societies that upend all sense of security, and how the European vampire is just one species in a larger family of predatory supernatural entities that includes the female flying demons of Southeast Asia and the lustful yogin¿s of India.Richly illustrated, Killing the Dead provocatively argues that corpse-killing, far from being pathological or unhealthy, served as a therapeutic and largely harmless outlet for fear, hatred, and paranoia that would otherwise result in violence against marginalized groups and individuals.

"In his deeply moving new collection, The Shape of Things to Come, John Blair offers us penetrating meditation on the Manhattan Project and its consequences, in terms both historically recuperative and, mindful of a cautionary anxiety, deeply psychological. Here the author borrows from a communal legacy of ancient story to situate the bomb, in spite and in light of its break with the past, as both an illumination of human nature and a shift of mythical scope and weight. In light of the new Zeitgeist and a threat as extreme as ever and yet faded from conversation, this book breathes new life into a much-needed public understanding."-Bruce Bond

Building Faith in God through Christ is the primary assignment of the body of Christ on this planet. The individual Christian is called to believe and love the Lord.A trip through the teachings of scripture and a review many doctrines within the American church indicate that Church is trying to meet the mission set down by Jesus, but some adjustments and reminders may help. A review of the distractions facing the faithful and what scripture says is in order. A long look at what unites the body of Christ across race, color, economic strata, geographic and political barriers is also long overdue. We must see the necessity of demonstrating the love of Christ to our brothers and sisters in the church as well as those on the outside.In Faith: An Interactive Pursuit by John Blair, we experience a call for a functional day-to-day paradigm shift in the Modern American Christian Church. This call is for the individual members of the Church to realize that Christianity is NOT a religion! It was never intended to be. It IS an entire lifestyle. There is rich meaning in the calling of Christ to follow his role model through love, compassion, peace, joy, and grace.

By exploring the concept of the "tender gaze" in German film, theater, and literature, this volume's contributors illustrate how perspective-taking in works of art fosters empathy and prosocial behaviors.

Provides a view into the world of Bioterrorism and shows how it could affect the healthcare system of the United States. This work demonstrates the ramifications to health, politics, and everyday common actions and looks at biological agents and how organizations and the government should respond in cases when such agents are unleashed.