Monster in the Mirror: Recent Episodes
Lucas Kwong
With its millenarian fantasies of “taking America back for God,” U.S. Christian nationalism has received analysis as a spur to extremist violence, a political theology birthed in the Reagan era, and the latest iteration of an American preoccupation with manifest destiny. But the narrative of heroic white Christians rallying against a foreign and sexually ambiguous threat also finds precedent in an unexpected source: the vampires, mummies, and aliens of late Victorian fiction. Like 21st century “patriots,” fin de siecle British audiences were obsessed with moral and political decline. In response, they immersed themselves in the “virtual reality” of their time: tales of Christian soldiers conquering a nefarious, far-reaching enemy–and, in so doing, inaugurating an “age to come” of revived national strength. This series examines how such narratives, perfected in novels like Dracula and War of the Worlds, prototyped the conspiratorial blend of fact, fiction, and faith that has become “all the rage” on the Right–in more ways than one.
Christian nationalism is a kind of con game. And of all the authors examined in this podcast, the one most likely to appreciate that con would be Richard Marsh, author of the 1897 horror novel The Beetle. A one time con artist himself, Marsh treats the gender fluidity of his shapeshifting monster as a con game, a scam that defrauds God himself. Today, we're going to talk about how The Beetle's view of transgenderism illuminates the complex of hate, fear, and fascination with which Christian nationalists tell some of their most vicious lies: the ones about LGBT+ people.
Written, narrated, and produced by Lucas Kwong Theme song "Lair" by The Brother K Melee (www.brotherkmusic.com) Closing song "Expire/Exhale" by Lucas Kwong Voice actors: Christian Young-Valdovinos, Naomi Kwong
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Further Reading: Victoria Margree, British Women's Short Supernatural Fiction, 1860-1930: Our Own Ghostliness Daniel Orrells Minna Vuohelianen, and Victoria Margree, eds., Richard Marsh, Popular Fiction, and Literary Culture, 1890-1915 Joe Vallese, ed. It Came From The Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror. Cynthia Miller, ed. The Silence Of The Lambs: Critical Reflections On A Cannibal
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The trope of the “Asiatic criminal mastermind” has haunted Asians for over a century, from the notorious Fu Manchu right up to the myths of dastardly Wuhan virologists circulating in the COVID era. But these myths, which have helped fuel a historic spike in anti-Asian racism, didn’t start with Sax Rohmer’s “Devil Doctor.” Before Fu Manchu, there was Dr. Yen How, the villain of M.P. Shiel’s smash hit The Yellow Danger (1898). In this episode, we examine how Asians today live not only in the shadow of the ruthless Yen How, but also in the shadow of the mindless monster that Yen How commands: the “Heathen Chinee.”
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Pre-Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
For access to the full Orange Wave series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960
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Narrated and Scripted By Lucas Kwong Voice acting: Christian Young Valdovinos, Lucas Kwong Sound Effects courtesy of royalty free sources Played N Faved, The Sound Source, Free Sound Effects Theme Song “Lair” by The Brother K Melee (brotherkmusic.com) End song “Pledge Of Allegiance” by The Brother K Melee (brotherkmusic.com) Various film and news audio clips used under fair/educational use laws.
Further Reading: Sascha Auerbach, Race, Law, and the ‘Chinese Puzzle’ in Imperial Britain
Harold Billings, M.P. Shiel: A Biography Of His Early Years
Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief In Modern American Culture
Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime
Ross G. Forman, China And The Victorian Imagination: Empires Entwined
Christopher Frayling, The Yellow Peril: Dr. Fu Manchu And The Rise Of Chinaphobia
Kathryn Gin Lum, Heathen: Religion And Race In American History
Mark Jerng, Racial Worldmaking: The Power Of Popular Fiction
Kirsten MacLeod, "M.P. Shiel and the Love of Pubescent Girls: The Other 'Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name,'" English Literature in Transition 51.4 (2008): 355–80
Caroline Yang, The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker And The Minstrel Form.
When it was first published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula immediately triggered a spate of strong emotional responses. These responses partly stemmed from its action-movie depiction of Christianity, but also partly from the xenophobic fears of European Jews that lurk beneath its titular monster. Dracula also introduced the idea of a holy conspiracy, whose members must conduct their sacred fight against evil in secret. In this episode, we talk about how a century of adaptations has preserved the notion of dueling conspiracies, and thereby provided the narrative that fuels QAnon, the Oath Keepers, and other modern Crusaders consumed with their own secret plot to take America back from the "globalist" monsters they fear and loathe.
Pre-Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
For access to the full Orange Wave series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960
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Voice acting: Christian Young Valdovinos, Alfred Kwong, Lucas Kwong, Naomi Kwong For Further Reading:
Stephen Arata, Fictions Of Loss
Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker: A Biography Of The Author Of Dracula
Roger Luckhurst, ed. The Cambridge Companion To Dracula
Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search Of Dracula: The History Of Dracula And Vampires
David Skal, Something In The Blood: The Untold Story Of Bram Stoker, The Man Who Wrote Dracula
Bram Stoker And Valdimar Asmundsson, Powers Of Darkness: The Lost Version Of Dracula.
Bram Stoker, Dracula.
Audio from various films used under fair/educational use laws.
Monster in the Mirror is a limited audio series produced by Straight White American Jesus, and created and written by Dr. Lucas Kwong. Monster in the Mirror is a series about monsters. It's about how the fantastical beasts who stalk the imagination of contemporary Christian nationalists were birthed in another white God fearing empire. It's about how Christian nationalism's past and the clues to its future line, the pages of some of the most popular novels in English. Christian nationalism isn't just a set of policies or a material network of influencers. It's a story, a story that seduces the imagination, one that's been told over and over, but that is now enjoying a renaissance. And if we wanna trace today's reboot back to its source material, we have to go back further than the Reagan eighties or even the Billy Graham fifties. We have to go back to another time and place where the script that MAGA religion has now revived first entered white Christian consciousness, not as an explicit political ideology, but as entertainment. That time and place is late 19th century Britain. Monster in the Mirror explores how at the height of its powers, the British Empire began to suffer nightmares, visions of an apocalyptic future, of a decline. That in some sense, actually is happening today in our place in time. And we're gonna see how the monsters that today's Christian right blames for that decline originated in the stories that the late Victorians told themselves about Christianity's enemies and protectors.
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