The lure of images : a history of religion and visual media in America / David Morgan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Morgan, David.

Series:

Religion, media, and culture series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media in religion--United States--History.

Mass media in religion.

Mass media--Religious aspects--Christianity--History.

Mass media.

Mass media--United States--History.

Mass media--Religious aspects--Christianity.

History.

United States.

United States--Church history.

Church history.

Physical Description:

xii, 308 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2007.

Summary:

This fascinating history of the relationship between mass-produced visual media and religion in America takes the reader on a journey from the 1780s to the present: from early evangelical tracts to teenage witches and televangelists, and from illustrated books to contemporary cinema. David Morgan explores the cultural marketplace of public representation, showing how American religionists have made special use of visual media to instruct the public, to practice devotion and ritual, and to form children and converts. Along the way, he views Jesus as an American idol, Jewish kitchens and Christian parlors, Billy Sunday and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Uncle Tom's Cabin and the anti-slavery movement. This unique perspective reveals the importance of visual media to the construction and practice of sectarian and national community in a nation of immigrants old and new, and the tensions between the assimilation and the preservation of ethnic and racial identities. As well as the contribution of visual media to the religious life of Christians and Jews, Morgan shows how images have informed the perceptions and practices of other religions in America, including New Age, Buddhist and Hindu spirituality, and Mormonism, Native American religions and the Occult.

Contents:

Part I Print media in antebellum America 5

1 The aura of print 7

2 Religious visual media and cultural conflict 37

Part II New visual media and the marketplace 71

3 Consumption and religious images 73

4 Parlors and kitchens: domestic visual practice and religion 103

5 Pictorial entertainment and instruction 135

6 Seeing in public: America as imagined community 165

Part III The power and menace of images 197

7 Facing the sacred: image and charisma 199

8 Back to nature 230.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [294]-300) and index.

ISBN:

0415409144

0415409152

9780415409148

9780415409155

OCLC:

77708547

Online:

Publisher description