Jeannie B. Thomas

The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures

be unnecessarily short, and there were many occasions on which I would have liked to have seen far deeper description of the community and its practices. Similarly, there are a number of statements provided which—although presumably made on the basis of Pizza’s observations—are not bolstered with anecdotes or examples. This brevity may have been at the behest of the publisher rather than the author’s original intention, but it is unfortunate, because I felt that—on a very subjective level—it prevented me from mentally immersing myself in the world of Paganistan. There is a similar sparsity of sources, for while Pizza cites all of the major anthropological studies of contemporary Paganism, her bibliography is far from exhaustive. For instance, it does not contain even a single article from The Pomegranate, the only peer-reviewed academic journal of Pagan studies, which is a major omission. A fuller use of sources would have undoubtedly benefitted the work, for I noted a number of sections where she did not cite certain older studies on contemporary Paganism which would have been very germane to her discussion. One factor that I felt came across very clearly in the work is that while unique elements of Minnesotan identity have influenced the growing Pagan subculture of the region, it remains apparent that Paganistan is not in any way radically different from Pagan communities elsewhere in the United States, or even elsewhere in the Western world. Thus, while certainly an interesting case study, this book will not fundamentally alter our existing understanding of Paganism, but rather will deepen and add nuance to much of what we already know. As a scholar of contemporary Paganism, I enjoyed reading Pizza’s book, in particular because it shines a light on the idiosyncrasies of the Pagan community in a region that has never been academically examined before. In doing so, Paganistan has real value. However, I did feel that this was a work geared toward those already well acquainted with the new religious movement(s) in question. Pizza does not, for instance, provide an introduction to what Paganism is or how it sub-divides into different religious traditions, and thus someone with little or no background in the field of Pagan studies may not find it particularly accessible at times. Nevertheless, there will be things to interest the general reader of Folklore here; in particular, I should point out Pizza’s brief discussion of how certain Minnesota Pagans performed a variant of Staffordshire’s Abbots Bromley Horn Dance for their own 2005 May Day parade, reflecting one of the many ways in which contemporary Pagans have invested new meaning in older folk customs. At the same time I thought it unfortunate that Pizza does not mention the Minnesota Ooser—a mask representing Wicca’s Horned God, which is named after Dorset’s curious nineteenth-century antecedent. Ultimately, therefore, I think this is a book that will have a fairly limited appeal, but for those with a particular interest in contemporary Paganism, Midwestern folk culture, or the ways in which new religious movements are expressed through regional variation, Paganistan is certainly recommended.

Heckling Hillary: Jokes, Late-Night Television, and Hillary Rodham Clinton

Graduate of Yale Law School. Successful Lawyer. Children’s Advocate. Working Mother. First Lady of Arkansas. First Lady of the United States. Health-Care Expert. Senator. Member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. “Most Admired Woman in the United States.” Best-Selling Author. Recipient of the Military Coalition’s Award of Merit. Presidential Contender.

Woman and the Wilderness of Legend: An Intolerable ‘Margin of Mess’

La Llorona, the weeping woman of Mexican legend, was first heard in Mexico City about 1550, according to Luis GonzAlez Obreg6n (Leddy 10). Dressed in white, she went through the streets weeping in anguish and then disappeared into a lake (Leddy 10). Legends of the City of Mexico, which was published in 1910, presents an account in which La Llorona drowned all her children in the canals of Mexico, regretted her acts of infanticide, and haunted the streets at night, weeping and wailing for her children: