Consuming Religion

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University of Chicago Press, Sep 12, 2017 - Business & Economics - 361 pages

What are you drawn to like, to watch, or even to binge? What are you free to consume, and what do you become through consumption? These questions of desire and value, Kathryn Lofton argues, are questions for the study of religion. In eleven essays exploring soap and office cubicles, Britney Spears and the Kardashians, corporate culture and Goldman Sachs, Lofton shows the conceptual levers of religion in thinking about social modes of encounter, use, and longing. Wherever we see people articulate their dreams of and for the world, wherever we see those dreams organized into protocols, images, manuals, and contracts, we glimpse what the word “religion” allows us to describe and understand.

With great style and analytical acumen, Lofton offers the ultimate guide to religion and consumption in our capitalizing times.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Practicing Commodity
15
Revising Ritual
59
Imagining Celebrity
103
Valuing Family
139
Rethinking Corporate Freedom
195
Conclusion
283
Acknowledgments
289
Notes
295
Index
345
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About the author (2017)

Kathryn Lofton is professor of religious studies, American studies, history and divinity at Yale University.