Consumerism

Religious Freedom, Exemption, and Festivals in Australia | Discourse! November 2021 (with video)

Podcast
In this Aussie episode of November Discourse, Professor Carole Cusack and Ray Radford sit down with Dr. Breann Fallon to discuss religion as in Australian current affairs.

Manifestos and the Academic Study of Religion

Podcast
What are manifestos? How are they employed in society? What can the academic study of religion offer to help understand them? The faculty and students in the Dept. of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney have a few thoughts on that. Tune in to learn more!

Comics and the Superhero Afterlife

Podcast
In this wide-ranging interview with A. David Lewis, comic books are presented as an irreplaceable cultural medium for engaging with issues of mortality, identity, subjectivity, and cosmology. With an overwhelming slate of comic book driven television series (Walking Dead, Gotham, ...

Demons, possessions, and exorcisms: Sean McCloud on “Spiritual Warfare”

Podcast
How should one approach the study of demons and spiritual warfare? In this conversation with University of North Carolina, Charlotte professor Sean McCloud, demons, possessions, and exorcisms that might have once been considered fringe or marginal elements of the American religious scene are now part of a robust “haunted” or supernatural landscape.

Heavy Metal as Religion and Secularization as Ideology

Response
"Social science, more than any other branch of science, is prone to the undesired influence of philosophical and ideological perspectives. The question is, then, how should social scientists deal with ideologically-infused theories without glossing over the ideologies behind them? I don’t have a straightforward answer to this question, but I can refer to Gauthier’s nuanced approach to studying neo-liberalism, which he outlines in his interview."

Religion, Neoliberalism and Consumer Culture

Podcast
According to Gauthier, it is important to note is that religious activity of the day is not haphazard or random pick-and-choose at all. Instead, it is following a new kind of logic, that of consumerism. Marketization and commodification among other phenomena are affecting the field of religion - and vice versa. Listen and find out more!
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