Download or read book Secular Steeples 2nd edition written by Conrad Ostwalt and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of secularization in America, this book provides students with an innovative way of understanding the relationship between religion and secular culture. In Secular Steeples, Conrad Ostwalt challenges long-held assumptions about the relationship between religion and culture and about the impact of secularization. Moving away from the idea that religion will diminish as secularization continues, Ostwalt identifies areas of popular culture where secular and sacred views and objectives interact and enrich each other. The book demonstrates how religious institutions use the secular and popular media of television, movies, and music to make sacred teachings relevant. From megachurches to sports arenas, the Bible to Harry Potter, biker churches to virtual worship communities, Ostwalt demonstrates how religion persists across cultural forms, secular and sacred, with secular culture expressing religious messages and sometimes containing more authentic religious content than official religious teachings. An ideal text for anyone studying religion and popular culture, each chapter provides questions for discussion, a list of important terms and guided readings.
Download or read book Secular Steeples 2nd Edition written by Conrad Ostwalt and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Scandinavian [Nordic] countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland experienced the effects of the German invasion in April 1940 in very different ways. Collaboration, resistance, and co-belligerency were only some of the short-term consequences. Each country's historiography has undergone enormous changes in the seventy years since the invasion, and this collection by leading historians examines the immediate effects of Hitler's aggression as well as the long-term legacies for each country's self-image and national identity. The Scandinavian countries' war experience fundamentally changed how each nation functioned in the post-war world by altering political structures, the dynamics of their societies, the inter-relationships between the countries and the popular view of the wartime political and social responses to totalitarian threats. Hitler was no respecter of the rights of the Scandinavian nations but he and his associates dealt surprisingly differently with each of them. In the post-war period, this has caused problems of interpretation for political and cultural historians alike. Drawing on the latest research, this volume will be a welcome addition to the comparative histories of Scandinavia and the Second World War.
Download or read book Cinema and Secularism written by Mark Cauchi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cinema and Secularism is the first collection to make the relationship between cinema and secularism thematic, utilizing a number of different methodological approaches to examine their identification and differentiation across film theory, film aesthetics, film history, and throughout global cinema. The emergence of moving images and the history of cinema historically coincide with the emergence of secularism as a concept and discourse. More than historically coinciding, however, cinema and secularism would seem to have-and many contemporary theorists and critics seem to assume-a more intrinsic, almost ontological connection to each other. While early film theorists and critics explicitly addressed questions about secularism, religion, and cinema, once the study of film was professionalized and secularized in the Western academy in both film studies and religious studies, explicit and critical attention to the relationship between cinema and secularism rapidly declined. Indeed, if one canvases film scholarship today, one will find barely any works dedicated to thinking critically about the relationship between cinema and secularism. Extending the recent “secular turn” in the humanities and social sciences, Cinema and Secularism provokes critical reflection on its titular concepts. Making contributions to theory, philosophy, criticism, and history, the chapters in this pioneering volume collectively interrogate the assumption that cinema is secular, how secularism is conceived and related to cinema differently in different film cultures, and whether the world is disenchanted or enchanted in cinema. Coming from intellectually diverse backgrounds in film studies, religious studies, and philosophy, the interdisciplinary contributors to this book cover films and traditions of thought from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. In these ways, Cinema and Secularism opens new areas of inquiry in the study of film and contributes to the ongoing interrogation of secularism more broadly.
Download or read book Protests as Events written by Ian R Lamond and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can activism be considered a leisure activity? Can the Occupy movement, local campaigns for change and lone acts of personal resistance be understood as events? Within the field of Events Management the content of events is generally analyzed within three categories—culture, sport or business. Such a typology can be helpful as a heuristic for interpretation and analysis within a commercial paradigm. However, this framework overlooks and depoliticizes a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest. Protests as Events is the first book to explore activism as a leisure activity and protests as events; using a fresh interpretation of event to develop a new critical politics of events and leisure. Bringing together a range of cutting edge research from around the world, it explores a variety of protests through the lens of events studies and leisure in order to understand how the study of events management might be conceptualized in the protest space.
Download or read book Understanding Religion and Popular Culture written by Elizabeth Rae Coody and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-04-17 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Religion and Popular Culture 2nd edition provides an accessible introduction to this exciting and rapidly evolving field. Divided into two parts, Issues in Religion and Genres in Popular Culture, it encourages readers to think critically about the ways in which popular cultural practices and products, especially those considered as forms of entertainment, are laden with religious ideas, themes, and values. This edition has been thoroughly revised and includes five new chapters, updated case studies, and contemporary references. Among the areas covered are religion and film, food, violence, music, television, cosplay, and fandom. Each chapter also includes a helpful summary, glossary, bibliography, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading/viewing. Providing a set of practical and theoretical tools for learning and research, this book is an essential read for all students of Religion and Popular Culture, or Religion and Media more broadly.
Download or read book Religion and Popular Culture in America Third Edition written by Bruce David Forbes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-03 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The connection between popular culture and religion is an enduring part of American life. With seventy-five percent new content, the third edition of this multifaceted and popular collection has been revised and updated throughout to provide greater religious diversity in its topics and address critical developments in the study of religion and popular culture. This edition also adds to the end of each chapter new the pedagogical tools of discussion questions and key term glossaries.
Download or read book Perspectives on the U S Mexico Soccer Rivalry written by Jeffrey W. Kassing and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume considers the U.S.-Mexico soccer rivalry, which occurs against a complex geo-political, social, and economic backdrop. Multidisciplinary contributions explore how a long and complicated history between these countries has produced a unique rivalry—one in which loyalties split friends and family; fan turnout in many regions of the U.S. favors Mexico; and games are imbued with both national pride and politics. The themes of nationhood, geography, citizenship, acculturation, identity, globalization, narrative and mythology reverberate throughout this book, especially with regard to how they shape place, identity, and culture.
Download or read book Biblical Reception 4 written by David Tollerton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biblical Reception is rapidly becoming the go-to annual publication for all matters related to the reception of the bible. The annual addresses all kinds of use of the bible in art, music, literature, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation. For this fourth edition of the annual, guest editor David Tollerton has commissioned pieces specifically on the use of the bible in one film: Exodus: Gods and Kings and these chapters consider how the film uses the bible, and how the bible functions within the film.
Download or read book Law Registration and the State written by Jess Smith and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-28 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an original and compelling analysis of registration as a dynamic process which makes and unmakes legal identities. Critical legal and socio-legal scholarship tends to assume that registration is a textually mediated act of statecraft which governs through the technology of writing. Taking a different approach, this book develops movement as socio-legal method to illustrate the legal, social, and bureaucratic layers of movement which unfold in everyday engagements with the law. The book presents empirical and theoretical analysis of historical, contemporary, and future-oriented places of registration: a community hub, a city of pilgrimage, and the General Register Office. Drawing from diverse perspectives across anthropology, geography, sociology, architecture, and mobility studies, the book argues for an understanding of registration as evolving, socially constructed, and shaped by spatial imaginaries which are materialised in its architecture. This mobile understanding of registration expands conceptual discussions of legal materiality whilst opening up possibilities for legal identities unconstrained by the assumed desirability of stability or endurance. This interdisciplinary book will appeal primarily to a sociolegal, critical legal, and legal geography readership; but it will also be of interest to those in other disciplines concerned with materiality, movement, and statecraft.
Download or read book Conservative Religion and Mainstream Culture written by Stefan Gelfgren and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-20 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights tensions and negotiating processes between modern society and conservative religious groups. Conservative religion and society have co-existed for at least a century in an increasingly pluralist society. Still, the right to religious freedom and tolerance clashes with certain expressions of religious exclusivity. In this book, scholars from different disciplines look at the various ways in which representatives of conservative religious faith live, practice, and formulate their religion in relation to a contemporary mainstream culture. The studies included represent various settings with regard to time, religion and geography, and are presented in three thematic groups: culture, schooling and public life, and media. Taken together, the studies contribute to a more nuanced and diverse picture of conservative religious believers and their engagement with mainstream society. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of sociology of religion, church history and contemporary religion.
Download or read book Skateboarding and Religion written by Paul O'Connor and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ways in which religion is observed, performed, and organised in skateboard culture. Drawing on scholarship from the sociology of religion and the cultural politics of lifestyle sports, this work combines ethnographic research with media analysis to argue that the rituals of skateboarding provide participants with a rich cultural canvas for emotional and spiritual engagement. Paul O’Connor contends that religious identification in skateboarding is set to increase as participants pursue ways to both control and engage meaningfully with an activity that has become an increasingly mainstream and institutionalised sport. Religion is explored through the themes of myth, celebrity, iconography, pilgrimage, evangelism, cults, and self-help.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture written by Dan W. Clanton, Jr. and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The study of the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture has blossomed in the past few decades, and the time seems ripe for a broadly-conceived work that assesses the current state of the field, offers examples of work in that field, and suggests directions for further study. This Handbook includes a wide range of topics organized under several broad themes, including biblical characters and themes in popular culture; the Bible in popular cultural genres; "lived" examples; and a concluding section in which we take stock of methodologies like Reception History and the impact of the field on teaching and publishing. These topics are all addressed by focusing on specific examples from film, television, comics, music, literature, video games, science fiction, material culture, museums, and theme parks, to name a few. This book represents a major contribution to the field by some of its leading practitioners, and will be a key resource for the future development of the study of Bible and American popular culture"--
Download or read book The Study of Religion written by George D. Chryssides and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This updated textbook unravels the complex issues related to methodology and theory in the study of religion. It equips students with the knowledge needed for the academic study of religion, explaining the history of the methodology, including ideas of key theorists, and discusses key issues in the field, such as gender, phenomenology, and the insider/outsider discourse. Updated throughout, additional material includes: -New chapter on colonialism and post-colonialism -New chapter on insider/outsider discourse -Coverage of 'cyber-religion' and the internet as a research tool in religious studies Study and classroom features in each chapter include: -Chapter outlines -Case studies -Boxed key concepts -Discussion questions -Chapter bibliographies The text is illustrated throughout with 35 images, and extra resources can be found online, including additional coverage of 'levels of religion'.
Download or read book Ecopiety written by Sarah McFarland Taylor and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tackles a human problem we all share―the fate of the earth and our role in its future Confident that your personal good deeds of environmental virtue will save the earth? The stories we encounter about the environment in popular culture too often promote an imagined moral economy, assuring us that tiny acts of voluntary personal piety, such as recycling a coffee cup, or purchasing green consumer items, can offset our destructive habits. No need to make any fundamental structural changes. The trick is simply for the consumer to buy the right things and shop our way to a greener future. It’s time for a reality check. Ecopiety offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ranging from portrayals of environmental sin and virtue such as the eco-pious depiction of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, to the green capitalism found in the world of mobile-device “carbon sin-tracking” software applications, to the socially conscious vegetarian vampires in True Blood, the volume illuminates the work pop culture performs as both a mirror and an engine for the greening of American spiritual and ethical commitments. Taylor makes the case that it is not through a framework of grim duty or obligation, but through one of play and delight, that we may move environmental ideals into substantive action.
Download or read book American Communities Between the Popular and the Political written by Lukas Etter and published by Narr Francke Attempto Verlag. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the political relevance of the topic of community and the apparent volatility of its meanings, it is necessary to take time and create spaces for contemplation. How can theories of community be usefully applied to various forms of cultural production? How do notions of communitas affect representations as well as critiques of society and social developments? Based on a selection of papers given at the biennial conference of the Swiss Association for North American Studies in late 2016, this collection approaches discourses on literary texts and other cultural products from such angles as age studies, popular seriality, sustainability, and ecocriticism. While focused on community in contemporary American Studies, the articles in this collection also take into account some of the developments and issues surrounding community at a moment of heightened sensitivity towards this topic beyond academia.
Download or read book Personal Jesus Engaging Culture written by Clive Marsh and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pop music is now an ever-present force shaping citizens in the West. Even at funerals, pop music is often requested over hymns. But how does popular music work? And what roles does it play for listeners who engage it? This new addition to the critically acclaimed Engaging Culture series explores the theological significance of the ways pop music is listened to and used today. The authors show that popular music is used by religious and nonreligious people alike to make meaning, enabling listeners to explore human concerns about embodiment, create communities, and tap into transcendence. They assess what is happening to Christian faith and theology as a result. The book incorporates case studies featuring noted music artists of our day--including David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Sigur Rós, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and Lady Gaga--and includes practical implications for the church, the academy, and daily musical listening. It also includes a foreword by Tom Beaudoin, author of Virtual Faith.
Download or read book Secular Steeples written by Conrad Ostwalt and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2003-03-24 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conrad Ostwalt explores the confluence of religion and popular cultural forms in the secular world, demonstrating that a secular religiosity has co-opted some of the functions previously reserved for religions institutions.
