In recent years, there has been growing awareness across a range of academic disciplines of the value of exploring issues of religion and the sacred in relation to cultures of everyday life. Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age offers inter-disciplinary perspectives drawing from theology, religious studies, media studies, cultural studies, film studies, sociology and anthropology. Combining theoretical frameworks for the analysis of religion, media and popular culture, with focused international case studies of particular texts, practices, communities and audiences, the authors examine topics such as media rituals, marketing strategies, empirical investigations of audience testimony, and the influence of religion on music, reality television and the internet. Both academically rigorous and of interest to a wider readership, this book offers a wide range of fascinating explorations at the cutting edge of many contemporary debates in sociology, religion and media, including chapters on the way evangelical groups in America have made use of The Da Vinci Code and on the influences of religion on British club culture and electronic dance music.
Contents: Introduction: why study religion and popular culture?, Chris Deacy; The ethics of research in faith and culture: scholarships as fandom?, Tom Beaudoin; Media rituals: from Durkheim on religion to Jade Goody on religious toleration, Nick Couldry; Deepening relationships with material artefacts, Stephen Pattison; Contesting martyrdom, Jolyon Mitchell; Religionless in Seattle, Michael W. DeLashmutt; Marketing God and Hell: strategies, tactics and textual poaching, Carlton Johnstone; The gospel of Tom (Hanks): American churches and The Da Vinci Code, Ellen E. Moore; From pulp fiction to revealed text: a study of the role of the text in the otherkin community, Danielle Kirby; Seeing the self as other: televising religious experience, Nicholas Buxton; Possession trance ritual in electronic dance music culture: a popular ritual technology for reenchantment, addressing the crisis of the homeless self, and reinserting the individual into the community, Rupert Till; Representation of religion in Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, Milja Radovic; A secular gospel for the marginal: the films of Stephen Chow as Hong Kong cinematic parables, Yam Chi-Keung; What is 'on': an exploration of iconographical representation of traditional religious organizations on the homepages of their websites, Sarah Lawther; Researching theo(b)logy: emerging Christian communities and the internet, Katharine Sarah Moody; Index.
