Dr. Shannon McRae

I was born to poor Lithuanian acrobats in a traveling carnival. After a traumatic incident involving a trapeze and a popcorn dispenser, I decided academia was a better and less hazardous direction.

Teaching Interests

Film Studies, American Studies, Mythology and Folklore, American Popular Culture, Bible as Literature, Arthurian literature, Greek and Roman literature, Irish literature and culture, Modernism, Postmodernism, Queer Theory, Critical Theory, Poetry and Poetics,

Research Interests

20th century intersections of religion and popular culture, literary and aesthetic modernism, postmodernism, folk religions, psychoanalytic theory, American roads and regions.

Professional Membership

• Southwest Popular and American Culture Association
• Communal Studies Association

Intellectual Contributions

• "Kelpius Community," World Religion and Spirituality Project (2023).
• "The Public Universal Friend," World Religions and Spirituality Project (2022).
• "Eddy Family," World Religions and Spirituality Project (2021).
• "Robert Wise--The Motion Pictures," Film Criticism (2021).
• "The Israelite House of David," World Religions and Spirituality Project (2020).
• "Descriptive Bibliography of the Imprints of the House of David Collection," American Communal Societies Quarterly, Special Issue (2018).

Performances/Exhibits

• "ReWired: The Internet of Us," NeON Digital Arts Festival, Digital Warehouse (Online Exhibition Space) (2021).

Presentations

• "German Pietism: How We Got There From Here," Ephrata Cloister Winter History Class (2023).
• "Reflections and Representations of Occult Conspiracy: Projection, Paranoia, Propaganda, or Possibility?," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (2023).
• "Ernest Thompson Seton: Wolf Hunter, Scoutmaster, Indian Cosplayer, Pagan," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (2023).
• "Out of Body Experiences: How a Failed PA Mining Town Gave itself a Glow-up with Jim Thorpe’s Body," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (2022).
• "Great Lakes Modernism: Chicago Meets Buffalo," Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Symposium (2021).
• "Poetry, Prayer, Pornography: Aleister Crowley's Leah Sublime," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (2021).
• "Roundtable: This Strange Aeon: Endless Myth and the American Elder Gods," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (2021).
• "21st Century Cyborgs," Conversation Garden, School of Cyborg (2021).
• "The Christians and the Pagans: Zitkála-Šá and William Thompson Seton," Southwest Popular American Culture Association Annual Conference (2020).
• "The Progressive Lady Meets the American Indian Movement," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (2019).
• "Wandering Star: How the Israelite House of David Received Their Sacred Text at the Side of the Road," Communal Studies Association National Conference (2018).
• "Out of the Woods and Into the Parks: White/Native Collaboration, Modern Spirituality, and Constructions of Authenticity," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (2018).
• "Barchair Tourism: Cocktail Culture and the Fetishistic Object of Ideology," Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (2017).
• "Theory Without Tears: Why Literature Programs Need Film Studies," Media, Communication, and Film Studies (2016).
• "“The Great Gatsby and Jazz Age Drinking Culture”," Big Read (2015).