Popular culture fandoms, the boundaries of religious studies, and the project of the self
Title:
Popular culture fandoms, the boundaries of religious studies, and the project of the self
Author:
McCloud, Sean
Appeared in:
Culture and religion
Paging:
Volume 4 (2003) nr. 2 pages 187-206
Year:
2003-11
Contents:
The starting point of this paper will be studies that view popular culture as religion. First, I examine a selection of recent works that argue certain popular culture communities—namely, music subcultures, sports, and television and celebrity fandoms—look like, act like, and indeed are religions for participants. Methodologically, the studies under examination proceed by starting with a definition of religion and then looking for parallels between the pop culture fandom and the definition. I suggest that popular culture as religion scholarship is at best creative, always problematic, and tends toward what Samuel calls 'parallelomania'. In the second part of the paper, I use the studies under examination, as well as original research, to argue that contemporary fandoms are better understood as late modern 'projects of the self', affiliational choices that act to establish self-identity and community in a time period when these things are not given, but reflexively made and remade.
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