André Carrington Ritual, pilgrimage, and ecstasy are not only metaphors when it comes to people’s devotion to cultural texts—these terms are really useful in theories of the practice of making genre traditions.
Tag Archives: popular culture
Maybe It’s Colbert’s Fault
Stephanie Brehm Supporters claim Trump does not mean everything he said on the campaign trail; that he will not do half of the abhorrent things he spewed. But do they believe that in part because our comedians, the funny, ironic truth-tellers were for so long invested in perpetuating truthiness?
Seven Questions for Amir Hussain
Amir Hussain I’ve always been fascinated by the life and work of Hank Williams Sr. . . the most underrated American theologian of the 20th century.
Staking Monsters: Killing the Racist Trope in Horror and Reality
Kelly J. Baker How do we create monsters? And ultimately, how do we destroy them?
Fashionable Intolerance
Kelly Baker A couple of months ago, I started watching the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. In the premiere episode, Kimmy and the three other “mole ladies” are rescued by a SWAT team from an underground bunker.
Accelerating the Contradictions with the Coen Brothers
Mark Hulsether “Would that it were so simple.”
On Bonnaroo’s 15th: The Sacred and the Psychedelic Tradition
Scott Muir While 65% of the 655 individuals I surveyed at 10 such festivals report that they rarely or never “attend religious or spiritual services/gatherings,” participants overwhelmingly affirm the notion that these festivals are themselves sacred social events.
Teaching True Believers
Jolyon Baraka Thomas The religious studies classroom is a strange place. Whether one teaches in a public university or a private one, the subject matter demands that students set aside personal commitments in order to engage with religion both critically and respectfully.
“Cannot tell Aught but the Truth”: Photography and Birth of a Nation (1915)
Rachel McBride Lindsey Through plot device, camera technique, and historical conceit, Griffith’s epic story of the triumph of racially defined and providentially guided national unity out of racially contrived sectional chaos leans heavily on the early history of American photography.
Literary Antecedents and Contemporary Reflections of Thomas Dixon’s “The Clansman”
Carolyn M. Jones Medine As The Clansman demonstrates, the Ku Klux Klan was a structure within which white men acted out their vision of southern society and through which they used terror to enforce those visions. The KKK may have been the United States’ first cellular terrorist structure: it was and is covert, local and de-centered, mobile, and opportunistic, multiplying by opportunity and interpersonal connections.