Course Syllabus

“Religion today is much more a public, commodified, therapeutic and personalized set of practices than it has been in the past.  At the same time, the media … are collectively coming to constitute a realm where important projects of ‘The self’ take place – projects that include spiritual, transcendent, and deeply meaningful ‘work.’ … religion and media are increasingly converging … on a common turf: the everyday world of lived experience.” S. Hoover

“I suspect that [the de-institutionalization of religion] is not a de-institutionalization at all, but a re-institutionalization of religious faith within the institutions of commercial mass media.” P. Horsfield

“Images … [are not] …ancillary illustrations to the ‘real’ nature of religion as theology, creed, sermon, or clergy. Instead, images and the manner in which they are used are primary forms of evidence – visual evidence; they are, materially speaking, religion at work.” D. Morgan

REQUIRED READING:

Mahan,  Jeffrey H., Media, Religion and Culture: An Introduction  Routledge, 2014 NOTE: The book releases late May in England, but will not be available in the US until mid-summer. If you would like to own a copy you can pre-order on Amazon and presumably the ecopy will be available sooner. I am also posting page proofs here and have posted individual chapters for the week they are due to be discussed below. The posted material may not be distributed outside the class. 

Purchase and read ONE of the following (to be discussed Week Seven). Sign up for the appropriate reading group at the Choose Your Additional Reading tab below:

Choose a second book to read and discuss from the Required Reading list in the syllabus. Confirm your selection by clicking the tab on the Canvas site which will assign you to the related Reading Group on Canvas. There is room for up to seven people in each reading group. Once the groups are established we will set a time during week seven for your group to meet in Google Hangout to discuss the book and plan a reading report to share with the class the following week.

• Ward, Pete, 2011, Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion and Celebrity Culture, Waco: Baylor University Press (Examines the “veneration” of celebrities to explore how religion interacts with popular culture and draw a distinction between religion and Para-religion.) 

• Detweiler, Craig, 2013, IGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives, Grand Rapids: Brazos Books (Detweiler provides a Christian perspective on what he calls the "iGods," of our age--Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Pixar, YouTube, and Twitter.)

• Clark, Lynn Scofield, 2013, The Parent App: Understanding Families in the Digital Age, New York: Oxford (Examines the way families with different social locations relate to digital media nicely combining academic observation with reflection on the range of possible choices.)

See Taylor Library's list of online book sellers for purchasing options.

Instructor Information
Learning Goals
Requirements and Grades
Policies
Choose Your Additional Reading

COURSE OUTLINE for Canvas Site.summer.14 (6) (1).docx

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