The Altar of Taylor Swift
By Kelly J. Baker
The patron saint of awkward, idealistic (white) girls lives in my home, a part of our soundscape. The kids and I dance to her music. I place the toddler on my hip and grab the six-year-old’s hand. We shake off our concerns and frustrations together. We laugh at our silly dance moves. We sing along. This is a moment, in which we let everything go and enjoy ourselves.
Modern Greece and the Politics of the Sacred
Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) referred famously to “the consecrated state.” G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831) spoke of the modern democratic state almost as if it were a “temple” dedicated to human freedom. Both men came to their startlingly spiritual views of modern politics and the modern state by reflecting critically on the French Revolution and its aftermath.
Superhero Afterlife (Abridged)
A. David Lewis is a national lecturer in Comics Studies and an award-winning graphic novelist. He holds a PhD in Religion and Literature from Boston University and is a founding member of Sacred and Sequential. His book, American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife, is now available from Palgrave Macmillan.
LSD and the Rabbis: Conclusion
Shalom Goldman As a culturally and politically aware New York City teenager, I knew that there was a buzz among bohemians and literati about LSD use. That in the early 1960s artists, musicians and poets were using psychedelic drugs was not exactly news. And that some of these artists were Jews (in a city a quarter of whose population was Jewish) was not exactly news either.
The New God of Football
By Saadia Faruqi The NFL made headlines yet again earlier this week for imposing a penalty on Muslim football player Hussain Abdullah and then promptly retracting the penalty and issuing an apology. Most people like myself heard of the apology before the penalty and had to backtrack to find out exactly what occurred on Monday night. […]
An Interview with Jeffrey Kripal, Part Three: The Future of Religious Studies
In conversation with Paul Courtright of Emory University, Jeffrey Kripal, of Rice University, discusses his new textbook, Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms. Professor Kripal’s latest book is a departure from the traditional “world religions” textbook. He frames the adventure of the comparative study of religion as a kind of passage from conventional categories of religion, through an analysis of key themes […]
Why I Still Love Disney, or, Imagineering Religion
By S. Brent Plate This is the sign that hangs over the entrance to Disneyland, less than an hour from where I grew up in Southern California. I realize some people save up for years to drive the kids in the family truckster to Orlando or Anaheim to see such a place, but I […]
Introducing Sacred Matters
Sacred Matters is a web magazine of public scholarship that undercuts conventional understandings of religion and reimagines the boundaries between religion and culture. It is designed with the “nones” in mind, the fastest growing segment of the American religious landscape over the last ten years. These are individuals who prefer not to claim a specific, […]