Stephen King and Philosophy

Edited by Jacob M. Held

Publication date:

15 October 2016

Length of book:

328 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442253841

Haunting us with such unforgettable stories as The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Green Mile, and Pet Sematary, Stephen King has been an anchor of American horror, science fiction, psychological thrillers, and suspense for more than forty years. His characters have brought chills to our spines and challenged our notions of reality while leaving us in awe of the perseverance of the human spirit. The first book in the new Great Authors and Philosophy series, Stephen King and Philosophy reveals some of the deeper issues raised by King’s work. From retribution, freedom, and moral relativity, to death and insanity, the chapters of this book expose how King’s stories access the questions and fears that haunt each of us in the middle of the night.

Contributions by Katherine Allen, Randall E. Auxier, Charles Bane, Matthew Butkus, Kellye Byal, Cam Cobb, Timothy Dale, Paul R. Daniels, Joseph J. Foy, Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Tuomas W. Manninen, Garret Merriam, Michael K. Potter, and C. Taylor Sutton

Introduction: On Writing Popular Philosophy 1
Jacob M. Held
1 There Is No God in Desperation: Tak and the Problem of Evil 13
C. Taylor Sutton and Jacob Held
2 Female Subjectivity in Carrie 35
Kellye Byal
3 “Sometimes Dead Is Better”: King, Daedalus, Dragon-
Tyrants, and Deathism 47
Katherine Allen
4 “Gan Is Dead”: Nietzsche and Roland’s Eternal Recurrence 71
Garret Merriam
5 Rāma of Gilead: Hindu Philosophy in The Dark Tower 83
Matthew A. Butkus
6 What’s Wrong with Roland?: Utilitarianism and the Dark
Tower 97
Greg Littmann
7 Stephen King and Aristotelian Friendship: An Analysis of
The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank
Redemption 113
Bertha Alvarez Manninen
8 Propaganda and Pedagogy for Apt Pupils 131
Michael K. Potter and Cam Cobb
9 The Shining’s Overlook Hotel as Heterotopia 147
Elizabeth Hornbeck
10 Broadcast Dystopia: Power and Violence in The Running
Man and The Long Walk 161
Joseph J. Foy and Timothy M. Dale
11 Stephen King and the Art of Horror 173
Greg Littmann
12 “You Weren’t Hired to Philosophize, Torrance”: The Death
of the Author in The Shining 195
Charles Bane
13 What Happens to the Present When It Becomes the Past:
Time Travel and the Nature of Time in The Langoliers 207
Paul R. Daniels
14 Notes on Foreknowledge, Truthmaking, and
Counterfactuals from The Dead Zone 219
Tuomas W. Manninen
15 Time Belongs to the Tower 231
Randall Auxier
16 Ur 88,416 253
Randall Auxier
17 From Desperation to Haven: Horror, Compassion, and
Arthur Schopenhauer 277
Jacob M. Held
Ka-tet: Author Biographies 299

Author Stephen King, despite his popularity, is largely derided in academic circles, typecast as a genre-fiction horror novelist. In this collection of essays concerning different philosophical views as they relate to King’s work, Held argues that horror is the perfect category in which philosophy can thrive because it forces readers to be aware of things hidden deep and dark within our basest selves. What we fear goes a long way toward defining us as people, and King has always been well known for tapping into these anxieties and exploiting them in his writing. It is refreshing to see King finally viewed through a scholarly lens, with pieces on topics such as reading The Dark Tower as a nihilistic text, using Carrie to discuss the definition of womanhood as 'Other' in a male-centric society, and Aristotelian friendship in The Body and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. VERDICT King’s 'Constant Readers' will rejoice in this appreciation of their academically misaligned hero; students of philosophy, collegiate or casual, will also enjoy this text, giving them a familiar context to a field that can confuse the best of us.