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Holy Consumerism! Selling Religion as Popular Culture
Associate Professor Vivian-Lee Nyitray
Department of Religious Studies
Course: HASS 092-14N
Call #: 19706
Mon and Fri, 12:10-1:00pm, INTN 3043
This course will meet twice per week for 3 weeks with a half-day field trip to be arranged

This brief course examines the branding and marketing of religion, whether for the sake of promoting religious belief and action or for purely commercial consumer ends, that is, to sell a product and make a profit. There will be readings, a brief film, and a Saturday field trip, time and date for which will be arranged at the first class meeting.

Reading List:

Readings will be selected from Religion and Ethics Newsweekly; Carolyn Morrow Long (Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce); Timothy K. Beal (Roadside Religion); Eric Michael Mazur (God in the Details); and Pattana Kitiarsa (Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods)

Brief Biographical Statement:

A specialist in the religions of China, Professor Nyitray has a longstanding research interest in the visual and material cultures of religion. She is a founding member of the American Visual Ethics Symposium and serves on the Advisory Board of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief.