Fantasy and belief by Danielle Kirby

[wolfdaughter]

"Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures" by Danielle Kirby, 2013.

I can't seem to find a place to download a PDF. I can only find reviews and the Amazon page for the book. www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Belief-Alternative-Narratives-Approaches/dp/1908049235

Here is a review of that book written on 2 March 2016 by Helen Farley. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9809.12313/epdf

Here is another review by Andrew Crome. relegere.org/relegere/article/view/667/750

Here is yet another review by Venetia Robertson. journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JASR/article/view/21038/pdf


I'd just like to mentioned here, some points that were mentioned in the thread for "Doctors Herding Cats". It's unfortunate that the Were/Therianthrope community seems to be missing from the more recent papers and this book. If not missing, then lumped in to such a degree that our differences are not being noticed. I strongly feel that Weres/Therians are quite a bit different from Otherkin, often in significant ways. I agree with what WVZ said in the other thread. What doctors, psychologists, and researches find to help Otherkin won't necessarily work to help Weres/Therians. We probably have different needs. And these papers and books always only frame Otherkin as an emerging spirituality or religion.

[wolfvanzandt]

The first research studies to deal specifically with modern therianthropy were from the religious studies community. Even Gregory Reece, the author of Creatures of the Night is from that field and the book is from a religion studies point of view. I don't grouse too much about that because it opened the topic up to people from other fields.

One point that is pretty common in the extant studies, though, is that therianthroopy can only be considered a religion by stretching the term "religion" to the breaking point.

I do notice that mention of therianthropy in the reviews is relatively rare. Maybe they're beginning to get away from seeing therianthropy as a flavor of Otherkin (wishful thinking?).

I notice that Kirby and Robertson are both from Australia. I wonder if they might have some relationship other than "I read this book and this is what I think of it." Robertson mentions that this might be the first book dedicated to Otherkin. That would completely dismiss Lupa, Orion Scribner, and other authors from within the Otherkin community. Also, they're still singing the Internet-Internet song long after more recent studies have made strong statements that therianthropy does not seem to be an Internet phenomenon.