Ellis, Bill 1950–

(Bill C. Ellis)

PERSONAL:

Born January 3, 1950, in Roanoke, VA; son of William Robert (a railway claims agent) and Mae Downs (a social worker) Ellis; married Carol Ann Ellis (a writer/editor), September 20, 1980; children: Elizabeth May. Education: University of Virginia, B.A. (with high honors), 1972; Ohio State University, M.A., 1973, Ph.D. (with distinction), 1978. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Lutheran (ELCA). Hobbies and other interests: Music, hiking, heirloom gardening, cooking, Japanese manga/anime.

ADDRESSES:

Office—The Hazleton Campus, Pennsylvania State University, Highacres, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291; fax: 570-450-3182. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and writer. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, lecturer in English department, 1978-82, supervisor, Center for Textual Studies, 1982-83; Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton, PA, assistant professor, 1984-90, associate professor of English and American studies, 1990—. Indiana University, Folklore Institute, visiting assistant professor, 1982; media expert for television shows, including features by the Fox Family Network and Arts & Entertainment Network; participant in numerous scholarly meetings and conferences.

MEMBER:

International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (president, 1994-99), American Folklore Society (president, Folk Narrative Section, 1989-98; president, Children's Folklore Section, 1987-89 and 1998-2000), Modern Language Association of America, Pennsylvania Folklore Society, Nathaniel Hawthorne Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellows' Prize, American Folklore Society, 1978, for best student publication in folklore; Centennial Award, American Folklore Society, 1989, for service to Folk Narrative Section.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Thomas Woodson, L. Neal Smith, and Norman Holmes Pearson) The Letters, 1813-1843 [and] The Letters, 1843-1853. The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volumes 15-16, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1985.

(Editor) The Consular Letters, 1853-1855 [and] The Consular Letters, 1856-1857. The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volumes 19-20, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1988.

(Editor, with Thomas Woodson) The English Notebooks, 1853-1856 [and] The English Notebooks, 1856-1861. The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volumes 21-22, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1997.

Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media, University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), 2000.

Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live, University of Mississippi Press (Jackson, MS), 2001.

Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture, University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), 2004.

Editor, Contemporary Legends in Emergence (monograph), California Folklore Society, 1990. Editor, FOAF-tale News (newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research), 1989-94. Contributor to books, including Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, edited by Jack Santino, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 1994; Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Taletellers, edited by William Barnard McCarthy, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1994; and Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, edited by Thomas A. Green, ABC-CLIO (Santa Barbara, CA), 1997. Contributor to periodicals, including Journal of American Folklore, Studies in the American Renaissance, Psychology Today, Skeptical Inquirer, and Fortean Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Ellis once told CA: "The impetus for my writing and research stems from the heady days of the 1970s, when a generation of bright scholars sought to transform the discipline of folkloristics from a bookish investigation of dying cultural materials into a radical critique of contemporary traditions. I began studying a storytelling tradition at a summer camp serving a multiethnic community of young people from inner-city Cleveland. Needing to expand existing folkloristic concepts to describe the functions of these stories, I, like many other young scholars, freely adapted ideas from sociolinguistics and semiotics. This work then drew me to look more globally at the roles of other traditions of adolescence, such as ‘legend-tripping,’ the custom of visiting allegedly haunted sites by car and ritually invoking the supernatural. Like my colleagues, I felt confident that folkloristics could be a key player in the study of contemporary youth culture.

"The euphoria of these days was broken by the academic retrenchment of the 1980s. I saw many colleagues silenced—many by leaving the field, some (like the brilliant Sue Samuelson) through premature death. A position with Ohio State's edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne allowed me first to continue academic research, though I came to identify with Hawthorne's search for desk work that would let him support his family and continue to think and write creatively. In the 1990s I found the discipline of folkloristics decimated and my research agenda marginalized. The elements of youth culture I had studied before now were being cited as evidence for omnipresent ‘satanic cults.’ This led to Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media, a cultural history of the origins of the 1980s ‘Satanism Scare.’ Researching this panic's roots, through grassroots traditions of exorcism, anti-Semitism, Ouija board use, and graveyard desecration, was like consuming a steaming bowl of maggot soup. But the job needed doing, and too few academics were willing to do it."

The author went on to note the books following Raising the Devil. Ellis told CA: "Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live revisits much of my earlier work on the narratives in youth culture and on ‘ostension,’ the way in which oral narratives model real-life actions, even deadly ones. The second … will look at the Satanism Scare in a broader historical context, showing how it enveloped out of much older occult traditions.

"Seeing my folkloristic work appear now brings mixed emotions: I can't help feeling that a more conventional field of study would have helped me protect my family from economic and social hardship. Still, I feel a duty to my silenced colleagues of the 1970s to carry on some of their intellectual excitement. While I am reconciled to the marginal status of my discipline at present, and of my work within this discipline, I still believe that the study of folklore remains essential to an understanding of human culture at large. Information communicated orally and through computer networks is often at least as influential as that disseminated through the media and official channels. And folklorists have a civic responsibility to address social problems directly rather than to veil their work in a hermetic, self-referential jargon."

For his book Raising the Devil, Ellis received commendations from several reviewers for his examination of how concerns over Satanism grew in the early 1980s disproportionately to the reality of what was really taking place. "The strengths of Raising the Devil lie in its meticulous research (in many instances, uncovering a wealth of obscure materials), close attention to detail, and broad view of the subject," wrote James Deutsch in American Studies International, adding later in the same review that the book "is an insightful contribution to a vital topic." Folklore contributor Jacqueline Simpson commented: "This book is a fascinating study. It also has a message that, if heeded, will remove a potent source of grief and fear."

In his 2001 book, Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults, the author looks at how stories, or oral narratives, can impact popular culture and individuals. In the process, the author explores how legends spur odd and fearful behaviors that are a reaction to avoid such things as ghosts or aliens, such as the story about a group of pizza store employees who would not agree to be in the store alone after closing because they believed a hanged man was haunting the store's refrigerator. While strange legends induce fearful behavior in some, the author points out that in many cases people may respond to these stories by visiting places that are supposedly haunted or, in more extreme examples, act out threats of violence in response to the tales.

"Ellis emphasizes the performance aspect of legend-telling, convincingly arguing that the way we tell these stories is as important as the stories themselves," wrote Mark Dionne in a review for the PopMatters Web site, adding later in the same review that, for the most part, the author "remains clear and interesting" in his analysis. Noting that "readers who allow themselves to be put off by the technical discussions will miss a good book," Benjamin Radford wrote in his review in the Skeptical Inquirer: "Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults is an important book because it shows how legends are not just musty old stories told around campfires, but narratives and beliefs that actively shape the way we live and the world we encounter."

In Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture, the author examines how the Anglo-American culture continues to carry on traditions that are considered to fall within the realm of the occult. Discussing everything from keeping a rabbit's foot as a talisman for good luck to more unusual practices such as trying to cast spells, the author examines the role that the occult plays in the twenty-first-century social lives of many more people than some may think. Church History contributor Glenn W. Shuck wrote that the author "deploys a highly readable yet undeniably academic style" and went on in his review to comment: "With the kind of dexterity only mastery of one's subject matter can bring, Ellis weaves … themes together, explaining how magical practices originated, as well as how prevalent they remain in contemporary America across cultures." Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Scott McLemee called Lucifer Ascending "the capstone to [Ellis's] work, the most concentrated synthesis of the ideas developed in the course of his research."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Studies International, June, 2002, James Deutsch, review of Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media, p. 100.

Chronicle of Higher Education, December 19, 2003, Scott McLemee, "The Devil and Bill Ellis," review of Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture.

Church History, December, 2002, Mark Silk, review of Raising the Devil, p. 925; March, 2007, Glenn W. Shuck, review of Lucifer Ascending, p. 230.

Folklore, April, 2003, Jacqueline Simpson, review of Raising the Devil, p. 123.

Library Journal, September 15, 2000, John Moryl, review of Raising the Devil, p. 82.

Publishers Weekly, September 25, 2000, review of Raising the Devil, p. 109.

Skeptical Inquirer, May, 2002, Benjamin Radford, "Living Legends," review of Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live, p. 49.

ONLINE

Penn State University Web site,http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/bellis/ (July 25, 2008), faculty profile of author.

PopMatters,http://www.popmatters.com/ Mark Dionne, "I've Got a Good Story for You," review of Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults.

Watchman Fellowship of Alabama Web site,http://www.wfial.org/ (July 25, 2008), "Satanic Cults, Ritual Slaying, and the Laci Peterson Murder Case: An Interview with Bill Ellis on Satanism, the Occult, and Folklore."