A Peer Reviewed Blog
What exactly is “bread,” and who gets to decide? Seems like a rather silly question, right? But the Irish Supreme Court has ruled that the US sandwich food chain Subway does not make their sandwiches with bread — which might be rather strange for many of us to hear. And if they don’t make their sandwiches with bread, what are they made with, and are they even sandwiches? Continue reading “When Bread Is Not Bread”
“On the Spot” backs members of Culture on the Edge into a corner to talk about their backgrounds, their ongoing work, and what might be gained by an alternative understanding of how identity works.
1. When people ask what you study, what do you tell them?
I tell them that I study religious people. I say this instead of “religion” because I want to emphasize that there is no religion without people behind the enterprise. That may seem a truism, to some, but since our field still engages so readily with talking about all sorts of disembodied religious traditions — i.e., differentiating between “Christianity” and the “Christians” who practice it — I think this is a really important distinction that places the emphasis back on human behavior. This explanation also helps with the task of clarifying that I’m not involved in some sort of ministry or theological pursuit, which is a presumption that most of us get when asked this question.
2. How do questions of identity manifest in your research?
My research up to this point in time has dealt largely with how various American conservative Christian entities re-negotiate their identities within a religious framework in order to secure certain social outcomes. More specifically, I’ve been looking at how evangelicals use religious ideas for particular ends within the American political system. I think the most important takeaway from this research has been that the identities and other types of portrayals that evangelicals make for themselves and others shift substantially as the political winds dictate, all while claiming no such shifting at all (in the name of eternality or god’s will). Instead of calling this hypocrisy or some sort of failure to live out “authentic values,” as is often the rhetoric from those on the left, I just see this as the normal mechanics of a social group. Everyone does it, in other words, because social groups are always looking to secure their own legitimacy, and when the social conditions change dramatically, so will, at times, their own identities. Continue reading “On the Spot with Leslie Dorrough Smith”
As I drive through my home city looking for a place to eat lunch, I feel overwhelmed by advertising that offers what seems to be an endless array of food options. Do I want fresh and healthy or fast and fried? How about vegetarian, seafood, gluten free, halal, burgers, pub food, buffet, Chinese, fine dining, Indian, local, or organic? While my options seem endless, there is one type of food that seems to be available on every street ‑ “authentic.” And with so many selling it, how does one differentiate between the inauthentic and the authentic? Continue reading “Marketing the Authentic Taco”
By Andie Alexander
I came across this article on the The Independent on the ruling of European Court of Justice which allows for businesses to ban employees from wearing hijab in the workplace. Here’s the video of Koen Lenaerts, President of the ECJ, discussing the ruling:
Continue reading “Language Games: On Neutrality and the Hijab”
By Jason W. M. Ellsworth
After the New England Patriots’ astonishing comeback win last Sunday in Super Bowl LI, one question remains- how does Tom Brady do it? Despite being the oldest starting quarterback in the game, he continues to stay at the top of the league. His practice regime was summed up in a recent article “In Better Shape Than Ever at Age 39: Here’s How Tom Brady Does It.” It details Brady’s predominately plant-based diet and has sparked strident debates over how to label him and his eating habits:
For most of the year, Brady is a vegan. In the cold winter months, he adds some lean meat to his diet. A typical day’s menu this time of year might include a breakfast smoothie—made with almond milk, a scoop of protein, seeds, nuts and a banana—a midmorning homemade protein bar, sliced up chicken breast on a salad with whole grains and legumes for lunch, a second smoothie as a snack and a dinner of quinoa with greens.
Prominent animal rights activist, author, and the President of Farm Sanctuary Gene Baur shared this in a post on Facebook:
Continue reading “Is Tom Brady Vegan, Vegetarian, or Just Another Ominvore?”
Let’s start with Ben Carson, Republican candidate for President of the United States. After his statements on Sunday saying that he would not support a Muslim as President of the United States and that Islam, as a religion, is incompatible with the US Constitution, his further explanations have compounded the problem. According to a Politico article, Carson reportedly clarified that someone with a Muslim heritage could win his support if that person is “willing to reject the tenets [of Islam] and accept the way of life that we have and clearly will swear to place the Constitution above their religion.” In case his meaning is not perfectly clear, he continued, “Then, of course, they will be considered infidels and heretics.” His campaign manager similarly clarified that there was no problem with someone who followed “Islam-lite.” Continue reading “Who Supports Al-Qaeda and ISIS?”
Over the last week, many have written about the labeling of ISIS as religious or not, as Islamic or not, both in response to last week’s summit on violent extremism and the recent Atlantic article on ISIS. Defending his administration’s refusal to label ISIS/ISIL as Islamic radicalism or extremism or a religious terrorist group, Obama asserted that he wanted to avoid connecting Islam with groups such as ISIS for strategic reasons, because he does not want to reinforce their self-descriptions that frame the conflict as religious and their ideology as true Islam. Rather than rehashing arguments about ISIS, the question that interests me is the role of strategic notions embedded in all discussions employing labels (really any words) to describe oneself or some other. In many respects, any description reflects particular moves in the chess game that is human society. Continue reading “Speaking Strategically About Religion”
As I’m sure we’ve all heard by now, Kim Kardashian’s backside, displayed for the world’s consumption and viewing pleasure (or not) on the front cover of Paper Magazine, “broke the Internet” just a short while ago and has since caused a flurry of debate, shock, praise, and disbelief. Add to that a big-booty praise of “#allday” from her beloved husband, Kanye West which received thousands of Retweets. I’ll leave it for those entering into the debate with interests and intentions of conflict management and moral maintenance to weigh in on what Kim’s big ‘ole butt plastered on the Internet for the world to view and deconstruct means for progress, freedom, justice, feminism, America, motherhood, identity politics, women, sexuality, Kanye, blackness, and much, much more. Amazing how a bare ass on a magazine can speak to and says something about such a *****wide***** variety of topics!
Something more interesting — and fascinating (in my opinion) has caught my attention about the unfolding conversation and ensuing public debate and discourse — that has seemingly little to do with the perceived “object” of study here. I’m more curious about how all of these emerging grand claims to truth (seen in what follows below) sparked by Kim K’s naked badonkadonk are helping it to break the Internet and make possible the Sui Generis booty she (and the world) thinks is so NOT-unique, or, not unique enough to warrant all of the hype. One is not born a big booty, rather, one becomes a big booty, so it seems. We have manufactured the Kardashian booty that we so love to hate and hate to love. Continue reading “Manufacturing Booty: On How We Stake Our Claims”
The New York Times headline Sunday “In China, ‘Once the Village is Gone, The Culture is Gone’” certainly grabbed my attention for its construction of “China” and “culture”. The article and accompanying video decry the loss of villages across China due to urbanization. While many migrate for jobs, some are forced to leave their village due to development plans. Since the state owns the land, the government can force people to move to make room for proposed developments, a golf course in this example. Continue reading “Whose Culture?”
“intellectuals are holders of cultural capital and, even if they are the dominated among the dominant, they still belong among the dominant. That is one of the foundations of their ambivalence….”
So wrote the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (d. 2002), in the closing lines to a 1996 address entitled “The Myth of ‘Globalization’ and the European Welfare State” (published in his little book, Acts of Resistance [29-44]). I think these lines are well wroth remembering when we read scholarship that writes against the grain, as some call it, or which undermines elite narratives by doing history from the ground up (what we once called social history). For, despite what they likely see as their own noble goals, the supposedly silenced voices that they recover are the products of their own travel grants, sabbaticals, and the privilege that comes with earning ones living by writing and talking about features of other people’s lives that strike us as interesting. Continue reading “The Ambivalence of Intellectuals”