{"id":8315,"date":"2016-11-04T11:22:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T17:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8315"},"modified":"2016-11-06T13:57:09","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T20:57:09","slug":"american-gods-as-a-challenge-to-the-study-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8315","title":{"rendered":"“American Gods” as a Challenge to the Study of Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am still waiting to see American Gods<\/a> <\/em>on the screen; meanwhile, scholars of religion are turning to the book and upcoming TV series <\/a>to see how they challenge conventional views of what “religion” is, particulary in the classroom.<\/p>\n

In the first of a series at the Bulletin for the Study of Religion <\/em>blog \u2014 it’s in the sidebar as “Religion Bulletin” \u2014 Eliza Rosenburg writes,<\/p>\n

Most people in the [religious studies] discipline would probably skip past the question of who Mr. Wednesday is, and the story dispenses with it quickly as well. Even before it answers the question of his identity for the readers, however, it introduces another question that will inform the rest of the narrative: What, exactly, is \u201creligion\u201d? We raise this old saw in the first session of every introductory class, and American Gods<\/em> wisely declines to offer another insufficient definition. Instead, the protagonist\u2019s experiences are ones that resonate with a classroom full of curious and frustrated students who have been struggling through an impossible task.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People whose definition of religion is shaped by the question, “What do you\/they believe<\/em>?” are also challenged by the world of American Gods<\/em>, she writes.<\/p>\n

As someone working in Pagan studies, the obvious \u2014 to us \u2014 differences between the ways that contemporary Pagans create religion are a given, but maybe we don’t explicate them enough. Polytheism vs. monotheism is just part of it.<\/p>\n

The article I wrote recently on “Contemporary Pagan, Wiccan, and Native Faith Movements<\/a>” for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion\u00a0 <\/a><\/em>“was so fascinating and generated so much interest among our readers,” said an Oxford University Press editor that she invited me to write a blog post. Well, flattery will get you a long way, so of course I said yes. It was published on the 2nd of November. (I wonder why.)<\/p>\n

In my blog post, I wanted to talk about how contemporary Pagan traditions challenge ideas of “religion” too, but I had two problems. First, for the presumed audience, I would have to give a bit of a history lesson. Second, there was a 700\u20131,000 word limit.<\/p>\n

As a result, I felt that the title, “Archaic and postmodern, today\u2019s pagans challenge ideas about \u2018religion,\u2019<\/a>” promised more than it delivered. It would have been fun, for example, to take some undergrad religious studies textbooks and assess their explicit and implicit ideas about what religion is, then hold up Pagan trads against that. That might produce a 6,000-word paper, at a minimum. (Put it on the To Do<\/em> list.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, watch the Bulletin <\/em>blog for more reflection on American Gods <\/em>and religion and other new stuff on the academic study of. <\/a>There is so much discussion about what “the discipline” is that contemporary Paganism’s challenge is its norms is just one of many. For a sampling, see this entry inspired by Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am still waiting to see American Gods on the screen; meanwhile, scholars of religion are turning to the book and upcoming TV series to see how they challenge conventional views of what “religion” is, particulary in the classroom. In the first of a series at the Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,10,5,4],"class_list":["post-8315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-american-religion","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2a7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12160,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12160","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":0},"title":"Farewell to the “Bulletin”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I just sent an issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion to the printer and said goodbye to the sales rep with whom I have been working for a number of years. He is in Pennsylvania, and I have never met him. (We never felt the need for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Pomegranate\"","block_context":{"text":"Pomegranate","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pomegranate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Bulletin-farewell.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Bulletin-farewell.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Bulletin-farewell.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5982,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5982","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":1},"title":"A Pastafarian Prophet","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This recent post on Religion Clause describes the victorious struggle of a Texas Pastafarian for the right to wear the sacred pasta strainer in his driver's license photograph. It caught my attention because I had just finished editing an article by Joe \"Vampires\" Leycock, \"wandering anthropologist of the occult,\"\u00a0 for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"A surrealist and a proto-Pastafarian, SE Portland, Oregon. ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/pastafarian.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9589,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9589","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":2},"title":"Quick Review: THE IMMORTALS by Jordanna Max Brodsky","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The old gods live among us, moving unseen, taking new forms, their powers diminished as people no longer honor them. That was the premise of Neil Gaiman's magical road-trip novel, American Gods, and it is also the backstory to The Immortals (2016), for here the Olympic deities have abandoned Greece\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Artemis\"","block_context":{"text":"Artemis","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=artemis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/immortals.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5073,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5073","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":3},"title":"Gerald Gardner and the Question of Polytheism.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently reviewed Philip Heselton's latest biography of Gerald Gardner, but I did not have time to discuss one of his final observations, written in a too-brief closing chapter, \"An Assessment of Gerald Gardner.\" Heselton writes, \"Indeed, he really didn't, I think, have any of what we might call 'spiritual'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12142","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":4},"title":"Great Review for Calico’s “Being Viking”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I was happy to see Being Vking: Heathenism in Contemporary America get a good review in Reading Religion, which is the American Academy of Religion's online book-review site. Michael Strmiska (currently teaching in Latvia) writes, Being Viking deserves great praise and wide readership as an extremely detailed and well-researched historical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/viking-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4628,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4628","url_meta":{"origin":8315,"position":5},"title":"The Multivalent Mothman","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month I wandered off into Mothman territory, but here is more, from the editorial blog of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion. There is an annual Mothman festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and two entries deal with it: \u201cWest Virginia is one big portal!\u201d Reflections on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8315"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8326,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8315\/revisions\/8326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}