Of Gods and Beasts and Stranger Things
Stranger Things, the Netflix television series of the summer, has captivated audiences with its imaginative storytelling and nostalgic nods to the paranormal thrillers of the 1980’s. The show’s originators, the Duff brothers, originally envisioned the series under the title of “Montauk”–a real town in Long Island that coincidentally inspired the fictional location of “Amity” in Spielberg’s Jaws. Montauk, however, is also associated with Camp Hero (aka Montauk Air Force Base) and the Brookhaven National Laboratory; locations that allegedly served as sites for clandestine psychokinetic experiments that involved kidnapped test subjects, according to some. Although the Duff brothers would later change the name and setting of what would eventually become Stranger Things, its plot still involves these eerie subjects.
Like many others, I have been binge watching this superb series as of late, but with a careful eye towards its themes of kidnapping, experimentation, and (yes) even religion. Below I’ll [Attached] attempt to tease out some of the obvious (and not so obvious) motifs I’ve discovered that revolve around the children of Stranger Things.
Read the attached PDF for the full article.
Tyler M. Tully is the director of the Resilience in Leadership Initiative at CTS. A native of Oklahoma with roots there extending before statehood, Tully earned a BA in Religious Studies and Theology from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas before graduating with an M.Div. from CTS in 2016. Tyler is also the Arthur Peacocke Scholar in Theology and Science at Exeter College, Oxford, completing his doctoral research under the supervision of Donovan O. Schaefer (U. Penn.) and Prof. Graham Ward (Oxon).
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