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Religions
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Religion and Contemporary Culture(s)
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Religion and Contemporary Culture(s)

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2015) | Viewed by 31424

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Lawrence W. Snyder

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Guest Editor
Potter College of Arts & Letters, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
Interests: American liberalism; religious humanism and unitarianism, pluralism and diversity, academic study of religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Religions will focus upon the ways in which religion is defined, experienced, and expressed in contemporary society. Of course, to phrase it in that way implies that “religion” exists as something epiphenomenal and abstracted from cultural contexts. Religious life and thought are, by contrast, rather messy affairs, tangled up in the assumptions and aspirations of human beings particularly placed, situated in time, and uniquely connected. Recent scholarship has illustrated the way in which “religion” is a construct of the Western imagination intended to circumscribe an allegedly unique set of human experiences and beliefs. Likewise, its conjoined twin “secularism” was invented to describe other aspects of social and private life supposedly unencumbered by problematic, and less “modern,” notions of the divine. The groundbreaking work of Charles Taylor, Talal Asad, Tracy Fessenden, and others have demolished that old binary model in favor of one much more complex and, frankly, interesting. We now talk of multiple secularisms, myriad cultures, and a variety of religious impulses all in play at any given time. Not surprisingly, that miscellany has allowed scholars of religion to look for expressions of piety and belief, or unbelief, in unexpected places. In addition to more familiar locales such as institutions and liturgies, intrepid explorers now hunt for specimens of “lived religion” in material culture, sport, popular entertainment, and political engagement. The journal encourages contributions from a variety of disciplines including history, anthropology, folk and popular culture studies, ethical theory, sociology, theology, and cultural studies. Submissions are requested that deal with a variety of religious traditions (Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Judaic, or aboriginal, as well as new movements or sectarian groups) in different global contexts (Asian, African, American, European, and Oceanic). Preference is for topics focusing upon manifestations of religious life and thought in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries. My hope is that this issue will explore a full range of questions detailing the often problematic but always fascinating interplay between religion and modernity on a global stage.

Dr. Lawrence W. Snyder
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

 

Selected References:

Threaded discussions on the Immanent Frame (http://blogs.ssrc.org);

Tracy Fessenden, Culture and Redemption (Princeton, 2013);

Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, 2003);

Mary Worthen, Apostles of Reason (Oxford, 2013);

Teryl Givens, et al., “Contemporary Mormonism: America’s Most Successful ‘New Religion’” in Religion and American Culture (Winter 2013, 23:1);

Jeffrey Samuels, Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture (Hawaii, 2010).

Keywords

  • religion and public life,
  • popular culture,
  • global religious diversity,
  • secularity,
  • modernity

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

258 KiB  
Article
Producing High Priests and Princesses: The Father-Daughter Relationship in the Christian Sexual Purity Movement
by Elizabeth Gish
Religions 2016, 7(3), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7030033 - 18 Mar 2016
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 11858
Abstract
This article describes and analyzes father-daughter purity balls in the context of the contemporary U.S. American conservative Christian sexual purity movement, with an emphasis on taking the self-understanding of those involved in the movement into account. It shows the ways that the idealization [...] Read more.
This article describes and analyzes father-daughter purity balls in the context of the contemporary U.S. American conservative Christian sexual purity movement, with an emphasis on taking the self-understanding of those involved in the movement into account. It shows the ways that the idealization of a hierarchical father-daughter relationship both constructs and reflects sexual purity ideals. The Christian sexual purity teachings frame this father-daughter relationship as an essential part of forming the ideal subject, and as reflective of the right order of the kingdom of God. In the logic of sexual purity, a good man is the strong high-priest leader of the household and the ideal girl is princess-like: white, non-poor, attractive, pure, feminine, delicate, and receptive. She is preparing, under her father’s guidance, for heterosexual marriage. Attention to the father-daughter relationship in the sexual purity movement highlights the ways that sexual purity is primarily about subject formation and the ordering of relationships—in families, in the nation, and in the church—and less about the specifics of when particular sexual acts take place or the public health risks that might come from those acts. This exploration also brings into relief the ways that contemporary conservative Christian sexual purity teachings draw from and build on two prominent aspects of contemporary U.S. American popular culture: the important role of the princess figure, and the buying of goods as indispensable to the formation of the subject. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Contemporary Culture(s))
200 KiB  
Article
The Role of Religion and Acculturation in the Consumer Ethnocentrism of Turkish Immigrants in Germany
by Nurdan Sevim, Elif Eroglu Hall and Hisham Motkal Abu-Rayya
Religions 2016, 7(3), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7030029 - 11 Mar 2016
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5801
Abstract
Researchers have invested much effort in the understanding of acculturation-relevant factors that influence immigrants’ psychological and socio-cultural adaptation. Factors that might have an impact on immigrants’ product consumption decisions have comparatively received scarce attention by acculturation and marketing researchers. Immigrants show different product [...] Read more.
Researchers have invested much effort in the understanding of acculturation-relevant factors that influence immigrants’ psychological and socio-cultural adaptation. Factors that might have an impact on immigrants’ product consumption decisions have comparatively received scarce attention by acculturation and marketing researchers. Immigrants show different product consumption patterns and therefore constitute big consumer groups that can have an impact on both the economy of immigrants’ culture of origin and the host society. The present study investigated Turkish immigrants’ product consumption ethnocentrism. The sample consisted of 599 youth and adult Turkish in Germany drawn from Cologne, the city with the highest ratio of Turkish people in the country. The study sample represented a very similar demographic make-up of the Turkish people in Cologne. The associations between acculturation strategies, loyalty to religion, and product consumption ethnocentrism were quantitatively analyzed based on a field survey. Research findings indicated that participants in the acculturation mode of separation scored significantly higher for consumer ethnocentrism than those showing other orientations, and those with an assimilation orientation scored the least for consumer ethnocentrism. Among the three religiosity dimensions (behavioral, emotional, cognitive) investigated in the present study, analyses controlling for a range of socio-demographic variables revealed a positive relationship between the behavior dimension of religiosity and consumer ethnocentrism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Contemporary Culture(s))
223 KiB  
Article
Creating Modern Japanese Subjects: Morning Rituals from Norito to News and Weather
by Wilburn Hansen
Religions 2016, 7(3), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7030028 - 11 Mar 2016
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5210
Abstract
This original research on Restoration Shinto Norito seeks to explain the rhetorical devices used in the composition of a morning prayer ritual text. The nativist scholar, Hirata Atsutane, crafted this ritual to create a Japanese imperial subject with a particular understanding of native [...] Read more.
This original research on Restoration Shinto Norito seeks to explain the rhetorical devices used in the composition of a morning prayer ritual text. The nativist scholar, Hirata Atsutane, crafted this ritual to create a Japanese imperial subject with a particular understanding of native identity and national unity, appropriate to the context of a Japan in the shadow of impending modernity and fear of Western domination. The conclusions drawn concerning Hirata’s rhetoric are meant to inform our understanding of the technique and power of the contemporary Japanese morning television viewing ritual used to create post-modern Japanese citizens with an identity and unity appropriate to a global secular context. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Contemporary Culture(s))
219 KiB  
Article
Hell Hounds, Hillbillies, and Hedonists: The Evangelical Roots of Rock n’ Roll
by Clay Motley
Religions 2016, 7(3), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7030024 - 7 Mar 2016
Viewed by 6810
Abstract
This essay contends that much of the creativity driving the formation of popular folk music, such as blues, country, and early Rock n’ Roll, in the American South during the early twentieth century grew from the religious tension between concepts of “sacred” and [...] Read more.
This essay contends that much of the creativity driving the formation of popular folk music, such as blues, country, and early Rock n’ Roll, in the American South during the early twentieth century grew from the religious tension between concepts of “sacred” and “secular” rooted in evangelical Protestantism. This essay examines the rebellious impulse of Rock n’ Roll as, in the absence of religious boundaries, tensions, and influences, it grew beyond its Southern roots. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Contemporary Culture(s))
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