Stranger Things is a Netflix series set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the early 1980s. The series began airing in 2016 and is planned to run for four or five seasons. It was created by the Duffer brothers, who pay tribute, in ways large and small, to the 1980s movies and culture that inspired them. This page organizes resources relevant to researching themes in the series, which form the basis for assignments in a special section of ENGL 111.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures by 
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by 
Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained by 
Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories by 
The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories by 
Stranger Things Fan WebsiteYou will get better results if you search key words, not sentences. Always consider broader terms and synonyms. For example, search "conspiracy theories" to get background information on the MKUltra program. Put short phrases like this into quotes.
Because Stranger Things is so recent, you may need to consider credible sources as well as scholarly/peer reviewed articles. You can turn the limiter for scholarly/peer reviewed off in the library databases.
Use the date limits: for example, you can set the beginning date to January 1, 2016 the year when the show began production
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Reference works, Scholarly journals, Trade publications, and important General interest magazines covering core academic subject areas. Help Guide available.
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Search back issues of scholarly journals in arts, humanities, and social science disciplines, as well as business, finance, and health science fields; capture titles that cross discipline boundaries. Dates from the 1700s on, with a lag of more than one year. Allows advanced searching. Includes some open-access Artstor materials.
Stranger Things and Philosophy by Because Stranger Things is so recent, you will find mostly books about related topics and concepts in the library databases. Recommended databases for ST topics (including the CIA, history, literary and film criticism, nostalgia, psychology, and small-town sociology):
Extensive collection of online academic books in all subject areas.
Extensive collection of online academic books in all subject areas
Dangerous Games by
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right, the field of psychology, and law enforcement claimed that these games were not only psychologically dangerous but an occult religion masquerading as a game. Dangerous Games explores both the history and the sociological significance of this panic. Fantasy role-playing games do share several functions in common with religion. However, religion--as a socially constructed world of shared meaning--can also be compared to a fantasy role-playing game. In fact, the claims of the moral entrepreneurs, in which they presented themselves as heroes battling a dark conspiracy, often resembled the very games of imagination they condemned as evil. By attacking the imagination, they preserved the taken-for-granted status of their own socially constructed reality. Interpreted in this way, the panic over fantasy-role playing games yields new insights about how humans play and together construct and maintain meaningful worlds. Laycock's clear and accessible writing ensures that Dangerous Games will be required reading for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.
Game Culture Reader by
In The Game Culture Reader, editors Jason C. Thompson and Marc A. Ouellette propose that Game Studies—that peculiar multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary field wherein international researchers from such diverse areas as rhetoric, computer science, literary studies, culture studies, psychology, media studies and so on come together to study the production, distribution, and consumption of games—has reached an unproductive stasis. Its scholarship remains either divided (as in the narratologists versus ludologists debate) or indecisive (as in its frequently apolitical stances on play and fandom). Thompson and Ouellette firmly hold that scholarship should be distinguished from the repetitively reductive commonplaces of violence, sexism, and addiction. In other words, beyond the headline-friendly modern topoi that now dominate the discourse of Game Studies, what issues, approaches, and insights are being, if not erased, then displaced?This volume gathers together a host of scholars from different countries, institutions, disciplines, departments, and ranks, in order to present original and evocative scholarship on digital game culture. Collectively, the contributors reject the commonplaces that have come to define digital games as apolitical or as somehow outside of the imbricated processes of cultural production that govern the medium itself.As an alternative, they offer essays that explore video game theory, ludic spaces and temporalities, and video game rhetorics. Importantly, the authors emphasize throughout that digital games should be understood on their own terms: literally, this assertion necessitates the serious reconsideration of terms borrowed from other academic disciplines; figuratively, the claim embeds the embrace of game play in the continuing investigation of digital games as cultural forms. Put another way, by questioning the received wisdom that would consign digital games to irrelevant spheres of harmless child’s play or of invidious mass entertainment, the authors productively engage with ludic ambiguities.
The Video Game Explosion by
The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond traces the growth of a global phenomenon that has become an integral part of popular culture today. All aspects of video games and gaming culture are covered inside this engaging reference, including the leading video game innovators, the technological advances that made the games of the late 1970s and those of today possible, the corporations that won and lost billions of dollars pursing this lucrative market, arcade culture, as well as the demise of free-standing video consoles and the rise of home-based and hand-held gaming devices. In the United States alone, the video game industry raked in an astonishing $12.5 billion last year, and shows no signs of slowing. Once dismissed as a fleeting fad of the young and frivolous, this booming industry has not only proven its staying power, but promises to continue driving the future of new media and emerging technologies. Today video games have become a limitless and multifaceted medium through which Fortune 50 corporations and Hollywood visionaries alike are reaching broader global audiences and influencing cultural trends at a rate unmatched by any other media.
Amateur Media: Social, Cultural, and Legal Perspectives by
The rise of Web 2.0 has pushed the amateur to the forefront of public discourse, public policy and media scholarship. Typically non-salaried, non-specialist and untrained in media production, amateur producers are now seen as key drivers of the creative economy. But how do the activities of citizen journalists, fan fiction writers and bedroom musicians connect with longer traditions of extra-institutional media production? This edited collection provides a much-needed interdisciplinary contextualisation of amateur media before and after Web 2.0. Using an extraordinary array of case studies and examples, from YouTube to online games, from subtitling communities to reality TV ... this book presents a critical dialogue across law and the humanities, exploring the dynamic tensions and interdependencies between amateur and professional creative production. This book will appeal to both academics and students of intellectual property and media law, as well as to scholars and students of economics, media, cultural and internet studies.
Brainwashing: The fictions of mind control, a study of novels and films since World War II by
An examination of the literary and cinematic representations of brainwashing during the Cold War era "Brainwashing: A method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, originated in totalitarian countries, especially through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques" --Random House Dictionary The term "brainwashing," coined during the Korean War, was popularized by a CIA operative who was a tireless campaigner against communism. It took hold quickly and became a means to articulate fears of totalitarian tendencies in American life. David Seed traces the assimilation of the notion of brainwashing into science fiction, political commentary, and conspiracy narratives of the Cold War era. He demonstrates how these works grew out of a context of political and social events and how they express the anxieties of the time. This study reviews 1950s science fiction, Korean War fiction, and the film The Manchurian Candidate. Seed provides new interpret-ations of writers such as Orwell and Burroughs within the history of psychological manipulation for political purposes, using declassified and other documents to contextualize the material. He explores the shifting viewpoints of how brainwashing is represented, changing from an external threat to American values to an internal threat against individual American liberties by the U.S. government. Anyone with an interest in science fiction, popular culture, or the Cold War will welcome this study.
A Culture of Conspiracy by
What do UFO believers, Christian millennialists, and right-wing conspiracy theorists have in common? According to Michael Barkun in this fascinating yet disturbing book, quite a lot. It is well known that some Americans are obsessed with conspiracies. The Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the 2001 terrorist attacks have all generated elaborate stories of hidden plots. What is far less known is the extent to which conspiracist worldviews have recently become linked in strange and unpredictable ways with other "fringe" notions such as a belief in UFOs, Nostradamus, and the Illuminati. Unraveling the extraordinary genealogies and permutations of these increasingly widespread ideas, Barkun shows how this web of urban legends has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media, how a new style of conspiracy thinking has recently arisen, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture. This book, written by a leading expert on the subject, is the most comprehensive and authoritative examination of contemporary American conspiracism to date. Barkun discusses a range of material--involving inner-earth caves, government black helicopters, alien abductions, secret New World Order cabals, and much more--that few realize exists in our culture. Looking closely at the manifestions of these ideas in a wide range of literature and source material from religious and political literature, to New Age and UFO publications, to popular culture phenomena such as The X-Files, and to websites, radio programs, and more, Barkun finds that America is in the throes of an unrivaled period of millennarian activity. His book underscores the importance of understanding why this phenomenon is now spreading into more mainstream segments of American culture.
The Elephant in the Room by
The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities--whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide-is no fairy tale.In The Elephant in the Room, Eviatar Zerubavel sheds new light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial-the keeping of "open secrets." The author shows that conspiracies of silence exist at every level of society, ranging from small groups to large corporations, frompersonal friendships to politics. Zerubavel shows how such conspiracies evolve, illuminating the social pressures that cause people to deny what is right before their eyes. We see how each conspirator's denial is symbiotically complemented by the others', and we learn that silence is usually moreintense when there are more people conspiring-and especially when there are significant power differences among them. He concludes by showing that the longer we ignore "elephants," the larger they loom in our minds, as each avoidance triggers an even greater spiral of denial.Drawing on examples from newspapers and comedy shows to novels, children's stories, and film, the book travels back and forth across different levels of social life, and from everyday moments to large-scale historical events. At its core, The Elephant in the Room helps us understand why weignore truths that are known to all of us.
Fantasyland by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The single most important explanation, and the fullest explanation, of how Donald Trump became president of the United States . . . nothing less than the most important book that I have read this year."--Lawrence O'Donnell How did we get here? In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what's happening in our country today--this post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through--is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA. Over the course of five centuries--from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials--our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies--every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails. Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE "This is a blockbuster of a book. Take a deep breath and dive in."--Tom Brokaw "[An] absorbing, must-read polemic . . . a provocative new study of America's cultural history."--Newsday "Compelling and totally unnerving."--The Village Voice "A frighteningly convincing and sometimes uproarious picture of a country in steep, perhaps terminal decline that would have the founding fathers weeping into their beards."--The Guardian "This is an important book--the indispensable book--for understanding America in the age of Trump."--Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci
Real Enemies by
Many Americans believe that their own government is guilty of shocking crimes. Government agents shot the president. They faked the moon landing. They stood by and allowed the murders of 2,400 servicemen in Hawaii. Although paranoia has been a feature of the American scene since the birth of the Republic, in Real Enemies Kathryn Olmsted shows that it was only in the twentieth century that strange and unlikely conspiracy theories became central to American politics. In particular, she posits World War I as a critical turning point and shows that as the federal bureaucracy expanded, Americans grew more fearful of the government itself--the military, the intelligence community, and even the President. Analyzing the wide-spread suspicions surrounding such events as Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, Watergate, and 9/11, Olmsted sheds light on why so many Americans believe that their government conspires against them, why more people believe these theories over time, and how real conspiracies--such as the infamous Northwoods plan--have fueled our paranoia about the governments we ourselves elect.
Science and Political Controversy (Contemporary World Issues) by
A shrewd and compelling examination of how political figures throughout history have used scientific findings to achieve their objectives--just as scientists have often put political forces to work to achieve their own goals. * Supplies a detailed review of the past decade during which politicians have misused and misrepresented scientific knowledge * Describes events going back to ancient Greece during which use or misuse of scientific or political power occurred, underscoring how these behaviors are well-established "means to an end" * Includes biographical sketches of individuals who have been involved in such activities
The Killing of Karen Silkwood by
This true story of a courageous whistleblower is "as fascinating and gripping as anything John Le Carr[é] or Agatha C[h]ristie could devise" (The Christian Science Monitor). On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood was driving on a deserted Oklahoma highway when her car crashed into a cement wall and she was killed. On the seat next to her were doctored quality-control negatives showing that her employer, Kerr-McGee, was manufacturing defective fuel rods filled with plutonium. She had recently discovered that more than forty pounds of plutonium were missing from the Kerr-McGee plant. Forty years later, her death is still steeped in mystery. Did she fall asleep before the accident, or did someone force her off the road? And what happened to the missing plutonium? The Killing of Karen Silkwood meticulously lays out the facts and encourages the readers to decide. Updated with the author's chilling new introduction that discusses the similarities with Edward Snowden's recent revelations, Silkwood's story is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. For this updated edition, the author has added the latest information as to what happened to the various people involved in the Silkwood case and news of the lasting effects of this underreported piece of the history of the antinuclear movement.
Plutopia by
While many transnational histories of the nuclear arms race have been written, Kate Brown provides the first definitive account of the great plutonium disasters of the United States and the Soviet Union.In Plutopia, Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the extraordinary stories of Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias--communities of nuclear families living in highly-subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia--they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment--equaling four Chernobyls--laying waste to hundreds of square miles and contaminating rivers, fields, forests, and food supplies. Because of the decades of secrecy, downwind and downriver neighbors of the plutonium plants had difficulty proving what they suspected, that the rash of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects in their communities were caused by the plants' radioactive emissions. Plutopia was successful because in its zoned-off isolation it appeared to deliver the promises of the American dream and Soviet communism; in reality, it concealed disasters that remain highly unstable and threatening today.An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites readers to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it.
The Rise of Nuclear Fear by
After the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant had a meltdown, protesters around the world challenged nuclear power. Climate change has never aroused this visceral dread. Weart dissects this paradox, showing that powerful images surrounding nuclear energy hold us captive, allowing fear, rather than facts, to drive our thinking and public policy.
Paranormal Phenomena by
Essayist Janet McDonald reports that psychics are frauds, while another essayist emphatically states the opposite. Across four chapters, essays are arranged in a pro versus con format, allowing topics about paranormal phenomena to be entertainingly debated. Readers will evaluate why people believe in paranormal phenomena, whether it really exists, whether the mind and the body are separate entities, and whether the government should support the paranormal. Related topics include brain structure, ghosts, near-death experiences, mediums, and the biology of hope.
Paranormal Nation: Why America Needs Ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot by
This thought-provoking study of paranormal phenomena traces the impact of supernatural beliefs on popular culture and, conversely, examines the influence of new communication technologies on research being conducted in the field.
Extraordinary Beliefs by
Since the early nineteenth century, mesmerists, mediums and psychics have exhibited extraordinary phenomena. These have been demonstrated, reported and disputed by every modern generation. We continue to wonder why people believe in such things, while others wonder why they are dismissed so easily. Extraordinary Beliefs takes a historical approach to an ongoing psychological problem: why do people believe in extraordinary phenomena? It considers the phenomena that have been associated with mesmerism, spiritualism, psychical research and parapsychology. By drawing upon conjuring theory, frame analysis and discourse analysis, it examines how such phenomena have been made convincing in demonstration and report, and then disputed endlessly. It argues that we cannot understand extraordinary beliefs unless we properly consider the events in which people believe, and what people believe about them. And it shows how, in constructing and maintaining particular beliefs about particular phenomena, we have been in the business of constructing ourselves.
Indiana: Off the Beaten Path by
Whatever you do when you travel, get off the highway. Who needs more bland rest stops and fast food? Get into the heart of things with Globe Pequot's Off the Beaten Path series. Devoted to travelers with a taste for the unique, this easy-to-use guide will help you discover the hidden places in the Indiana that most tourists miss - unsung, unspoiled, and out-of-the-way finds that liven up a week's vacation, a day trip, or an afternoon.Native or newcomer, use this guide to find historical and cultural information, detailed maps and driving directions, admission fees and hours of operation, restaurants, places to stay and much more.
Off the Beaten Path: Indiana by
Discover hidden gems and secret places across the USA and Canada in this series of state by state guides for the traveller with a taste for the unique. This book looks at Indiana.
More Amazing Tales from Indiana by
The stories in this book will provide entertainment for everyone and evoke wonder in the most jaded observer of the human condition. Some of the exploits that Fred D. Cavinder describes are half-hidden footnotes to national and international happenings. Others seem so typical of Indiana that they will appeal to anyone who understands the Hoosier spirit. But all of them are true--recorded in reliable accounts or by reliable witnesses from early times to the present. In "Saving Face," Cavinder introduces us to General Ambrose Burnside of Liberty. Burnside blundered his way through the Civil War, relocated to Rhode Island, and served three terms as governor and two terms as U.S. Senator. But what we really remember Burnside for is his unique facial hair--his "sideburns." Did you know that Indiana produced three of the movie Tarzans? In "AHHaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!" you can find out who they were. With its sometimes quirky stories about the Hoosier state, More Amazing Tales from Indiana will be a ready companion for the bedside table and will provide a wellspring of anecdotes for speechmakers and pundits.
Small-Town America: Finding Community, Shaping the Future by
More than thirty million Americans live in small, out-of-the-way places. In Small-Town America, we meet factory workers, shop owners, retirees, teachers, clergy, and mayors--residents who show neighborliness in small ways, but who also worry about everything from school closings and their children's futures to the ups and downs of the local economy. Drawing on more than seven hundred in-depth interviews in hundreds of towns across America and three decades of census data, Robert Wuthnow shows the fragility of community in small towns. He covers a host of topics, including the symbols and rituals of small-town life, the roles of formal and informal leaders, the social role of religious congregations, the perception of moral and economic decline, and the myriad ways residents in small towns make sense of their own lives. Wuthnow also tackles difficult issues such as class and race, abortion, homosexuality, and substance abuse.
Academic writing requires that you cite the sources you use, so that your readers can judge if you have used credible information. When you use in-text citations, readers also can see clearly what ideas are your original content. Writers want to write in their own words and avoid plagiarism.
The preferred style for citations in English papers is MLA, defined by the Modern Language Association. The preferred style for psychology and sociology papers is APA. These styles also define the overall layout of your paper.
The guides linked below offer more details.
