{"title":"The Trials and Tribulations of Luke Skywalker: How The Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm Have Failed to Confront Joseph Campbell’s Troublesome Legacy","authors":"Leonardo Ambasciano","doi":"10.1558/imre.43229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.43229","url":null,"abstract":"The present contribution offers some critical reflections on the influence of Comparative Religion scholar Joseph Campbell’s (1904- 1987) monomyth, or hero’s journey, on George Lucas’ Star Wars space opera. Like other celebrated 20th-century scholars of religion, after his death Campbell was revealed as an ultraconservative racist intellectual. However, Campbell had already been turned into a liberal icon thanks to Lucas’ own sponsorship and active support at least since 1983. After a recap of the recent history of Lucasfilm Ltd. and a brief discussion about the intersection of canon, fandom, and authority in Star Wars, the present article provides a preliminary answer to this puzzling relationship by contextualising Lucas’ own fascination with Campbell’s work within the larger post-war percolation of camouflaged radical-right ideas and authors, especially religious scholars, through Western democratic societies. The article contends that Lucas and new Lucasfilm owner The Walt Disney Co. have so far failed to confront Campbell’s problematic legacy and examines three main options to tackle this moral issue.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67498124","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 Persistence of the World Religions Paradigm: Response to Jacob Barrett’s “Critical Theory in World Religions: An Experiment in Course (re)Design”","authors":"Suzanne Owen","doi":"10.1558/imre.43227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.43227","url":null,"abstract":"When I came to Leeds Trinity University, my job title was “lecturer in World Religions” and two of the modules (courses) I was to teach were called World Religions 1 and World Religions 2. There was also a separate module on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. I was discouraged from changing these in the first couple of years partly because of market expectations. I taught them in much the way as described in Jacob’s paper and in the chapters on “Subversive Pedagogies” in After World Religions (Cotter and Robertson, eds, 2016). I was aware that although we were subverting the World Religions Paradigm (WRP), we hadn’t removed it. This persistence of the WRP, even when we pick it apart, concerns me. Is it really possible to teach world religions without the world religions paradigm?","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67498072","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":"After a Critique of Secularism: Excess and the Reliquary Logic of American Jewish Holocaust Commemoration","authors":"Laura S. Levitt","doi":"10.1558/imre.43228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.43228","url":null,"abstract":"Turning to the immanent space of contemporary Jewish life, this essay considers what happens after the critique of secularism to explore Holocaust commemoration in contemporary Jewish life. It argues that part of what the critique of secularism opens up are new ways of exploring these Jewish practices. Without the constraints of secularization’s clear definitions of what is either secular or religious, this essay shows how we can begin to make different connections. Appreciating what scholar of American religion Sally Promey has described as sensational religious practices, this essay explores a set of religiously inflected practices that challenge these norms, practices often made invisible by an abiding set of Protestant secular norms that read embodied, sensational practices as atavistic and objectionable.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67498087","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 Cult and Contemporary American Politics in Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5 (2018)","authors":"Ellie Fielding-Redpath","doi":"10.1558/imre.39875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.39875","url":null,"abstract":"When cults with an apocalyptic worldview are represented in contemporary North American fiction, something specific can be seen to occur. As Žižek (2010) argues, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are now embodied by global contemporary issues (for example: biogenetic concerns, ecological crises). Apocalyptic belief underpins not only fictional narratives but recognizable ideologies within religious, political and secular spheres, and has done so for centuries, specifically within the United States. However, a considerable number of post-/apocalyptic videogames have specifically turned toward the cult as a recurrent figure in their storytelling. Therefore, drawing upon philosophical, sociopolitical, and literary source materials (Foucault (1986); Thompson (1997); Sutton (2014); Introvigne (2014), alongside narratives from novelistic, filmic, televisual and videogaming platforms, this article will explore the use of the cult in post-/apocalyptic fictions. Using Ubisoft’s 2018 videogame, Far Cry 5, as a case study, this article highlights the use of a fictional cult known as The Project at Eden’s Gate to critique contemporary American politics, aligning the violence of apocalyptic scenarios with the violence of President Trump’s own apocalyptic rhetoric. Ultimately, this article will posit the cult as a new trope within post-/apocalyptic fictions; one which seeks to challenge constructs of power.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46721611","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 Qualitative and Critical Religion Analysis of the Category of Spirituality within The Visible Recovery Advocacy Movement","authors":"Liam Metcalf-White","doi":"10.1558/imre.40680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.40680","url":null,"abstract":"Critiques of the category \"spirituality\" argue that it functions to anesthetise affiliates to inequalities such as the suffering caused by capitalism. Furthermore, spirituality is regarded as both a superficial consequence of late-modernity and reifying the neoliberal agenda of an \"individual\" as narcissistic and morally responsible. While these critiques of spirituality are useful, they are totalising and only partially examine the complexities of such varied discourses. This article qualitatively examines the category of spirituality within the Visible Recovery Advocacy Movement (VRAM). Alongside \"faithbased,\" \"non-religious,\" and allegedly \"secular\" recovery modalities, many individuals and groups identifying within this movement utilise the language of spirituality. This article does not suggest that discourses on spirituality among people within the VRAM are immune to the tropes of neoliberalism, or that the formation of that category in contemporary usage, is not reliant upon specific cultural, economic, and political trends. Rather, I demonstrate that motivations among VRAM participants for engaging with this classification are far more complicated and dependant on a range of intersecting circumstances than critical evaluations acknowledge. Moreover, utilising study of religion and spirituality literature, I critically examine participants' construction of the category of spirituality, and what they report as the outworkings of that classification, especially in terms of addiction recovery, identity formation, making meaning, and community.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41285574","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 As We Understood Him’: Being ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ in Alcoholics Anonymous","authors":"J. Hahn","doi":"10.1558/imre.37778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.37778","url":null,"abstract":"Members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) draw upon beliefs, practices, and experiences they deem spiritual in order to help them get and stay sober. This article traces how AA emerged from its evangelical parent to become a “spiritual rather than religious organization” by encouraging members to engage with “God as we understood Him.” Interviews with thirty-four current and former AA members in the greater Los Angeles area, as well as ethnographic observation at AA meetings and related events, reveal how a significant number of modern AAs have adopted a personal “spiritual but not religious” orientation, seeking a healing truth outside of traditional religious organizations. Emerging from the Twelve Steps and sometimes in imitation of one of AA’s founders, this perennialist orientation touts a loving and forgiving Higher Power and a notion of spirituality as a profound interconnection with other alcoholics, challenging scholarly assumptions about narcissism and social disengagement in contemporary spirituality.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45318004","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":"Nonreligion as a Substantial Category in Canadian Law: Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford","authors":"Cory Steele","doi":"10.1558/imre.41437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41437","url":null,"abstract":"Since the 1960s there has been a considerable increase in the number of Canadians who identify as having “no religion”. The increase in the nonreligious notwithstanding, little is known about the beliefs, values, and practices of the nonreligious and what might generally entail a “worldview” commonly understood as nonreligion. Nonreligion therefore remains somewhat of a quagmire to sociologists of religion. This lack of understanding is particularly prevalent in the realm of law, particularly Canadian law as the Supreme Court of Canada has yet to define nonreligion as it has done religion. Drawing on the results of the discourse analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2013 Bedford decision this article seeks to explore the category of nonreligion as it is conceptualized in legal discourse about sex work. This article takes into consideration the changing religious and nonreligious diversity of Canadian society and argues that nonreligion is, like religion, framed as having its own positive content.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43816448","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":"Shifting Origins Tales and the Construction of Knowledge: Papers from the Method and Theory section of the AAR Southeast Regional Conference","authors":"Vaia Touna","doi":"10.1558/imre.41496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41496","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction to the Special Feature \u0000Shifting Origins Tales and the Construction of Knowledge: Papers from the Method and Theory section of the AAR Southeast Regional Conference","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47917507","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":"Students and the Study of Religion: The Extra-Curricular Origins of the World Religions Paradigm","authors":"A. Gardner","doi":"10.1558/imre.41048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41048","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48056410","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}