#023, What are we looking for when we look at ‘religion and popular culture’? (Religion Bites podcast)

If we are exploring religion in culture, then how and what do we talk about as religion? This  is a question that goes across much of the contemporary study of  religion, and impacts on it in various ways — not only in particular  religious and culture contexts, but also very noticeably in the  idea/approach of ‘material religion’. In short, if we want to explore ‘religion’ within particular cultural locations — such as religion in a book (e.g., Harry Potter) or a film/s (e.g., Star Wars) — then can we say that religion is a thing to find or a ‘manifestation’ of something (such as ‘the sacred’)? My straightforward answer to this is a definite ‘no’: religion is not a thing, it is not an it. A text version of this episode, together with the links mentioned, can be found at the link below. (The episode was recorded a while ago, when I was still  teaching at the University of Glasgow — that explains why I talk about  teaching a class, when of course at present such face to face teaching  is not possible due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020!). https://medium.com/religion-bites-podcast/023-what-are-we-looking-for-when-we-look-at-religion-and-popularculture-66f5f1d50214