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.
In Consuming Religion, Lofton offers a guide to religion and consumption in our capitalizing times.
All are welcome to join us on November 8 at 4:30 pm in the Sterling Memorial Library International Room for the latest lecture in the Arts and Humanities Book Talks series, Consuming Religion by Kathryn Lofton. Come early for coffee and cookies at 4:00 pm and stay for the talk at 4:30.