The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture最新文献

{"title":"Jesus: Made in America","authors":"Westbrook Matt","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.24.3.465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.24.3.465","url":null,"abstract":"The new millennium has brought with it much attention to the cultural production and reproduction of the historical Jesus. In 2004, Stephen Prothero’s American Jesus (a trade book) and Richard Wrightman Fox’s Jesus in America (a work of cultural history) shared the unfortunate timing of having their works come out in the same year. To this is now added Stephen Nichol’s 2008 contribution. Nichols, an evangelical insider, seeks to add to this genre by focusing sharply on the American Evangelical Jesus, and, as a theologian, to provide an assessment of what he perceives to be abuses of Jesus by those within his tradition (13–14, 17). The addition of a theological perspective to the genre is what makes Nichols’s work unique, and the reader should approach the book with this in mind. Relative to the contributions in Wrightman Fox and Prothero the strength of Nichols’s book lies in two specific areas: the career expertise of Nichols as a scholar of Puritanism and a strong critique of the commercialization of Christianity. Often this critique includes a focus on how economic decisions—such as the inclusion of an advertisement for the decidedly unorthodox Jefferson Bible as a Christian devotional resource in The Moody Monthly (68)—lead to (apparent) capitulation on critical theological issues. The work of moving Jesus products does not, Nichols demonstrates, involve a test of product orthodoxy prior to hitting the shelves. Such a dollars-over-theological-sense approach, not surprisingly, has increased dramatically in the last half-century, as is evident in Nichols’s chapter on the development of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM). In the 1990s, when ad agencies were preaching that marketing was really about evangelism (the secular side of the phenomenon, leveraging religious references, is popularly called “cult branding”; see D. Atkin’s The Culting of Brands [2004] for one of many examples), mega-churches (Willow Creek, most famously) were bursting onto the scene, trumpeting the idea that evangelism was all about marketing. Nichols reminds us that this conversation is not over and warns us to look behind “biblical” and “bible-based” descriptors of Christian products, as these phrases have become (have always been?) little more than branding monikers (79). There are a number of specific cultural appeasements to which Nichols takes offence, from Stone and Campbell allowing the Western frontier to shape their theology, to Max Lucado’s hyper-familiar, golfing-buddy Jesus doing the same in our time, to the parallel institutionalism of the mass Christian culture industry exemplified in CCM and Christian t-shirt and bumper-sticker companies. These discussions are not at all superficial. For instance, Nichols explores the effects on the message of the biblical text as he sees it, of a culture that requires participation through “consumptive behavior” (184). His analysis is quite helpful in posing important questions to Evangelical Christianity about its own ide","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"92 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123781193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"God-Fearing and Free: A Spiritual History of America‘s Cold War","authors":"C. Devin","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.24.3.471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.24.3.471","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"190 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131630423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do the Gods Wear Capes? Spirituality, Fantasy and Superheroes","authors":"L. Valentino","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.24.3.473","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.24.3.473","url":null,"abstract":"Saunders’s book enters an ongoing discussion on superheroes and their relationship to studies in classical mythology as well as theology. In the past decade, numerous critical monographs have been published, ranging from Christopher Knowles’s Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes, to Wendy Haslem’s Super/Heroes From Hercules to Superman, amongst others, examining the intersection between the study of the American superhero and religion. Entering into this ongoing conversation, Saunders’s book transitions away from the comparison of superheroes to mythologies and instead approaches the superhero as an embodiment of a modern version of the perennial wish of humans, which Saunders describes as “the wish that things were otherwise” (3). While exploring the relationship between theology and the American superhero, Saunders works to elevate the perception of the superhero: “I admire and value the work of philosophy to such a degree that I am actually trying to elevate the status of the superhero comic by association” (6). Saunders attempts to demonstrate that superheroes are not just “hyperbolic, violent fantasies,” but rather they are “in the same conceptual territory as, say Also Sprach Zarathustra, the Baghavad Gita, and the tragedies of Shakespeare” (7). Saunders posits that the overall lesson in the superhero genre is not about violence but to “try love, period. This is not astrophysics, or brain surgery. It’s not Kant or Hegel or Lacan or Derrida or Jean-Luc Marion. It’s more difficult than all of them. Be kind, you say? What . . . all day? Be Kind all day?” (14). Saunders’s book is divided into five parts; each part of the book is based on a different superhero, and the last section is focused on comic studies. In the first chapter, Saunders ultimately argues that Superman teaches his readers that virtue is more difficult than seeing through walls and outracing a speeding bullet. The second chapter explores early representations of Wonder Woman, which, according to Saunders’s argument, can be viewed not just as fetishistic, but as demonstrating a submission to divinity. Saunders then aligns Spider-Man with the “Knight of Faith,” a term which Kierkagaard uses only for Abraham. Saunders argues, “In Kierkegaard’s terms, in fact, Spider-Man might even be the greatest superhero of all” (94). Finally, through Iron Man, Saunders makes an interesting case for the relationship between humanism and technology by pursing the analogous relationship between alcohol dependency and technology dependency, ultimately demonstrating that Tony Stark must “let go” and open up to love and friendship. The last chapter notes the lack of comic scholarship and calls for more academic discussion of the medium. Saunders’s text, while producing an impressive study of the superhero, suffers in its analysis of Wonder Woman. Though the chapter is intended to liberate Wonder Woman, the only person freed in this chapter is Wonder Woman’s original creator","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126631494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Muslims and the New Media: Historical and Contemporary Debates","authors":"Morris Carl","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.24.3.467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.24.3.467","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116218153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pop Cult: Religion and Popular Music","authors":"Craig Tim","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.24.2.332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.24.2.332","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123324477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Posthumanity of “the Son of Man”: Heroes as Postmodern Apocalypse","authors":"G. Aichele","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.23.3.263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.23.3.263","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: As a serial narrative, the TV series Heroes cannot end and yet its story is impossible without the continual threat of an end of the world. However, this inability to end also connects these narratives with biblical narratives of the end, which are always “apocalypse without apocalypse” (Derrida). Even in its ancient forms, this revelation that does not reveal is a postmodern phenomenon, as that which “puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself” (Lyotard). Although the show rarely cites the Bible, in juxtaposition to the biblical texts' “son of man” language, Heroes opens up an intertextual context through which the “sons of man” of Daniel 7 and elsewhere in the Bible acquire meaning as posthuman beings, even as the mysterious forces producing the TV show's varied characters are interrogated.","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"135 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116040325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Great Mice at Cordoba: De-Mythologizing and Re-Mythologizing Religious Imagery in David Petersen's Mouse Guard","authors":"Niall Christie","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.23.3.289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.23.3.289","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article explores the use of religious images and ideas in David Petersen's comic book series, Mouse Guard. Through a discussion of both the text and the artwork presented in the series, we consider the ways in which these are adapted to the needs of the narrative and the world that Petersen has created. In the process we demonstrate that Petersen mostly removes the religious values traditionally associated with the images and concepts in question, replacing them with a different morality and theology that reflects the values and concerns of his diminutive heroes and their enemies while avoiding explicit expressions of belief in higher deities.","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123703723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Islam on the Internet: The Jinn and the Objectification of Islam","authors":"Celia E. Rothenberg","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.23.3.358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.23.3.358","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This paper is an ontological investigation of discourses about the jinn, or spirits, on an Internet information portal site and a chat room. These Web discourses relate to what some anthropologists have termed the Great and Little Traditions of Islam, but with greater disparity than could ever be identified in “real world,” Muslim-majority settings. Great and Little Web jinn discourses may best be understood as existing in dialectical tension with the ongoing process of the “objectification” of Islam in diaspora Islamic communities. Considered against ethnographic research on the jinn specifically and Islam more broadly, jinn stories on the Internet both reflect and may shape Islamic religious practice today.","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"18 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121002124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Latter Day Eve: Reading Twilight through Paradise Lost","authors":"L. Lampert-Weissig","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.23.3.330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.23.3.330","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Critics have demonstrated how Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga reinforces the notion that the appropriate roles for women are those of wife and mother. Viewed from a literary historical perspective, however, the Twilight saga can also be seen as reinterpretation of the Genesis story, told from a female point of view as a vampire narrative. Meyer's “New Eve” is part of a literary tradition that springs from Paradise Lost. Meyer's portrayal of the concept of free will and her connected depiction of the redemptive power of motherhood emphasizes elements in the Latter Day Saints tradition that present a more positive view of Eve, and by extension of “Woman,” than is common in traditional portrayals of Genesis.","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"268 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116832257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Religious Studies and Popular Fiction: What Does Dan Brown Have to Do With the Ivory Tower?","authors":"M. S. Scott, J. Zuidema","doi":"10.3138/JRPC.23.3.372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/JRPC.23.3.372","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: In this article the authors discuss the problems and prospects of engaging popular fiction in the academy, particularly in religious studies. Utilizing Dan Brown as the example par excellence, the authors argue that while Brown's novels, particularly The Lost Symbol, appeal to a culture of consumption, they nonetheless afford scholars a valuable opportunity to dialogue with audiences unfamiliar with the academic study of religion. When approached responsibly with the distinctive theories and methods of the discipline, popular fiction has the potential to serve as a productive pedagogical tool to promote religious studies as an intellectually stimulating and culturally relevant enterprise. Rather than ignore or inveigh against popular fiction because of its tendency toward misinformation, sensationalism, and superficiality, scholars of religion should harness the public enthusiasm that these works engender and redirect it toward constructive scholarly ends.","PeriodicalId":219603,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121341341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}