popular culture

There is nothing small-bore or contemptible about a novel that explores the wonder and heartbreak of romantic love against the distant thunder of imperial warfare.

I must admit, I was pretty excited when I heard about God in America. My husband and I are big PBS fans. As the show proceeded, however, I became increasingly annoyed. We moved from the Franciscans to the Puritans, with John Winthrop ostensibly treating Anne Hutchinson as badly as the Franciscans had the Pueblos. But it seems there were no indigenous people at all in New England in those days—or else they and the Puritans got on extremely well.

When Fox television aired a new animated show in 1989 about an odd, dysfunctional family from Springfield, no one had any idea how far it would go.

Some professional historians and scholars of American religion have criticized PBS’ God doc. This is not a surprise. After all, when has the academic community ever been comfortable watching its territory invaded by an army of people lacking PhDs? On blogs, religion and history listserves, and chat rooms around the country, academics have labeled the series “oversimplified,” “truly bizarre,” “simplistic,” “intolerable,” “uneventful,” “underwhelming.” Essentially they are calling the series not enough of an “intellectual endeavor.”

Last week’s six-hour PBS documentary, God in America, wasn’t really about God in America. Nor was it about religions in America. Following a fairly conventional narrative in mainstream discourse (albeit not one adopted by the contemporary Christian right), the series…

One wonders how religious leaders might have exercised a more meaningful presence in the event as it unfolded and was engaged across a global digital landscape. As I scanned the emerging Facebook communities throughout the day and monitored Twitter feeds and news site comments, it was clear that few religious leaders were participating in what has to have been the most significant global spiritual conversation that has ever taken place on Earth.

Modern Family, which won the Emmy award for best television comedy after its first season, just turned on religion. But what was really interesting about this episode, called “ Earthquake,” was the way it…

If art is the new religion, then museums are the new temples; temples uniquely suited to the vagaries of spirituality in the modern age. That is the suggestive idea explored in Marcia Brennan’s new book, Curating Consciousness. Brennan introduces us to James Johnson Sweeney…

Some of John Mellencamp’s latest offering was recorded in a black church in Georgia, where he got baptized to boot. What does it mean when a place like First African comes to serve as a stand-in for authenticity? What’s the myth behind the music?

The premise that Religious Studies was a weak blend of esotericism and elitism prior to recent years—but is reviving through putting all that in the past—is wrong on factual grounds. More perniciously, if this analysis informs institutional strategies in an era of downsizing, it could be downright dangerous for the future of the discipline.