W. Scott Poole

W. Scott Poole teaches courses in American politics and popular culture. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting(2011; revised edition 2018) that won the John Cawelti award for best textbook dealing with popular culture. He is a Bram Stoker Award nominee for his 2016 biography of H.P. Lovecraft, In the Mountains of Madness.

His most recent book is Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror (2018) looks at the lives of directors, artists, and writers who collectively created the culture of contemporary horror. Wasteland was chosen for “notable book” lists by The New York Post, The Toronto Free Star, and the Indie Booksellers“Indie Next” list.

Poole’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, PopMatters, Jacobin, and People’s World,as well as in academic essay collections including, most recently, The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (2019).

He tweets about horror and history @monstersamerica