RE220 Final Exam Review - Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 8:30 AM in N1001

Danielle Scarmato 110938660

Terms and Definitions

Amar Chitra Katha: Is one of India‘s largest selling comic book series, with more than 90 million

copies sold in 20 Indian languages (English language series came out in 1967).

―Immortal Picture Stories‖

Created by Anant Pai

Stories of gods and goddesses taken right out of a scared text

Marketed to Indian Middle Class

Mobile, urban, spoke English global outlook

Formed Indian diaspora that found jobs elsewhere

Connected back to religion with the Amar Chitra Katha

Related to the comic book series for the connection to Hinduism and their culture

American super hero characteristics are found in Indian comic books

o Example: Rama (extraordinary powers, god in human form, has an enemy, strong

moral code, secret identity)

o Meaningful narrative telling a Hindu myth

o Seeks to immortalize Hindu heroes

Apotheosis: is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology,

where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.

In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike

stature.

Appropriation

― The taking from a culture that is not one‘s own of intellectual property, cultural

expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge‖

Example: yoga- Hinduism context, secularized this in the West, no more religious

meaning, sports teams- use religious symbols

American Jesus: is fundamentalist, "badass", military, not feminine, not peace loving, and

muscular.

Axis mundi

The connection between heaven and earth (could even be a hole in the wall)

o Centre of a community

o The center point

o Example: a church on the top of a hill would be an axis mundi

Imago Mundi: the idealize version of the world

o An image centered around the Axis mundi

o Symbolically wants to put the world in order

o Less important than the Axis Mundi

Beat Poets

Influenced by theosophists and Zen

The beats were disillusioned with the west and turned to eastern religions, most notably

Buddhism

Alan Ginsberg and Jack Keruoac

Post war hipsters / Paved the way for hippies by embracing drugs, free love, etc.

Prototype for the counterculture

On a spiritual quest for a new consciousness

Think the western cultures and ideas are waste

Bhagavad Gita

Takes place on the battle field

Moral dilemma against cousins army

Duty to his family, feels that he has a duty to go to war against his cousin

This scripture contains a conversation b/w Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide Lord Krishna

o The same story of Bagger Vance who turns for council on the golf course

Bob Marley

Nine Miles

- Bob Marley‘s grave site in Jamaica

- More than a commemorative shrine for the family

- Set aside sacred space in time

- Site includes: house he grew up in, his mausoleum (housing the tomb), gift shop, restaurant

- Each threshold takes you further from the real world

Controversy over Mausoleum

- Wants to take his body to Ethiopia

- It was Bob Marley‘s wish to be in Ethiopia

- January 2005: Rita Marley announced hat she intended to move her late husband‘s remains from

his mausoleum in Jamaica to Ethiopia for his sixtieth birthday

- Wanted to be in Zion, his sacred space in Africa

Burning Man

Happens in the black rock desert in Nevada

Last Monday of August to the first Monday of September

Centers around a giant figure of a male made of wood

Lets of religious iconography

A giant nun confessional

A mirror with ―be your own messiah‖ written out on it

Sacred space is actively created at burning man

There is an element of pilgrimage

10 principles:

1) Radical Inclusion (strangers are allowed)

2) Gifting (give and don‘t expect to receive)

3) Decommodification

4) Radical Self-Reliance

5) Radical Sex-expression

6) Communal effort

7) Civic responsibility

8) Leaving no trace

9) Participation

10) Immediacy

Christotainment: Promoting Christianity via entertainment pop culture mediums. Eg.. Holyland

Experience, Jesus in Pop Culture (king of kings, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ super star...etc)

Civil religion:

Robert Bellah – well known for theorizing civil religion

―The set of religious or quasi-religious beliefs, myths, symbols, and ceremonies that

unite a political community and that mobilizes its members in the pursuit of common

goals‖

Is a mixing of religious piety with nationalism and patriotism

Not connected to constitutional religion

Can be considered as the political religion

Commodification:

1) Use of popular culture marketplace to market religion

2) Religion as a commodity in the ―religious marketplace‖

3) Disneyfication

- Making an item into a commodity (commodity=a marketable item)

- Example: the Virgin Mary‘s image has been tattooed on arms and sold on t-shirts

Counterculture: a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing

social norm

Wants to deviate from mainstream society

Deepa Mehta

- Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter

- Elements Trilogy: fire, earth, water

- Attempts to depict reality in film

- Themes: domestic and religious violence, political upheaval, religious fundamentalism

- Mehta‘s critique of pop culture representations of India: conceptions that prevail in the west

about India

- 1. Spiritual India- go and find nirvana

- 2. Conception that India is entirely poverty stricken with a permanent kind of begging bowl

attitude

- India brings specifically fixed images in many western minds

- When u stat de-eroticizing that, you have to deal with Indians as real people, there is pressure

not to do that

- Slum dog millionaire: poverty stricken, slum of India, massive ghetto, garbage, puts us in the

mind set that India is bad off

- Quick image to set up the plot

- Little Buddha: spiritual wonderland, mystical place

Dharma ―to hold things together‖

Your religious duty

o Your responsibilities (example: Your Dharma to your family would be taking

care of your parents when they grow old, just as they took care of you

One true path in life

o Hinduism believes that everyone has one true path in life and you have to find it

Disneyfication: homogenizing and sanitizing religious sentiment thereby reducing it to a ―Gospel

of Disney‖ that can be marketed around the world

Homogenization

Merchandising

Sanitizing

Repacking religion in a Disney ready form

Elements of religion in Disney movies

Simplify religion

Dominionists:

Christians who believe they have control over the world

Were given the right by god

Used pop culture:

o Owned media empire

o Employed hyperrealism

o Made hyper real films like The passion of Christ

o Have to be willing to die for the agenda

Evangelicalism:

To evangelize is to spread the word

Evangelical Christians

o Understand the Bible as the authoritative word of God and stress the experience

of conversion or being “born again”

Fundamentalism:

Bible is the infallible word of God

Anti-modern

Grey Owl: The wilderness man (1938). His real name was Archie Belaney. Grey Owl‘s

experience as an Englishman who went Native is a metaphor for the experience of all non-natives

who face the challenge of becoming North American. He is a symbol of our problematic

relationship with the Canadian wilderness. Seton and Grey Owl were moral reformers who

advocated the spiritual transformation of modern society by the application of what they took to

be ―Indian‖ values = wilderness values

Hierophany: – sacred made manifest

o Example when Moses goes up the mountain he finds God through a burning

bush

o The burning bush is a Hierophany

This term appears frequently in the works of religious historian Mircea Eliade as an alternative to

the more restrictive term ―theophany‖ (an appearance of god). It signifies a manifestation of the

sacred. Eliade argues that religion is based on a sharp distinction between the sacred and the

profane. According to Eliade, for traditional man, myths describe ―breakthroughs of the sacred

(or the supernatural) into the World – that is hierophanies

Holy Cow:

Critiques tourists (13)

Travel literature geared to experiences

Gives detailed histories of religions

Politics of nostalgia

Orientalist perspective? Or is she getting beyond it?

How is MacDonald‘s representation of India like or different from Deepa Mehta‘s?

o Similar, they talk about begging—in MacDonald, when she first got there she

explained what it was like

o MacDonald puts ―more meat on the bones‖, overindulges as a spiritual

wonderland

Can be a seeker and be a part of the religious marketplace

A lot of spiritual leaders

Is this an example of orientalism? Does it eroticize or essentialize India?

o Does she essentialize india?

10 days of silence

Women have great hair she has fair skin, physical difference and

categorizes people

Arranged marriages—how they worked, and relationships

Orientalist view?

o It is, western perception of a non-western individual

o Uses western language to describe non-western religion

Writes a lot about the mundane

Do you think anyone would take issue with her representation of religion in the book?

o Her book cover the look of it

o Zoroastrians—takes pictures of the vultures becoming instinct

Does this Disnify India, or Indian religions?

Does it commodify religion?

o Yes, ―people should try religions‖

o Buying into this idea of trying differing religions

o She commodifys religion while putting it as a product to sell

Could this book have been written about any other country?

o Could be done for a spiritual journey

What are 5 things you learned about India‘s religions from the book?

o Welcoming religion

o There are a lot of different kinds (Zoroastrians)

o Everyone believes their religion is the best

o Hinduism, stand on one leg and it is supposed to heal

o Yogi, school is going to change the world

o Cows were seen religious and holy

o Drink, smoke weed, etc., let loose with everyone

Sarah is told that she ―must die while doing [her] duty‖ Does she figure out what her duty

is?

o Pregnant—influenced by people she met and learned how mothers and daughters

mean and what family means

Is this a religious book? Sort of—contemporary

Hyperreality: is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe an inability of

consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically

advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness

defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original

event or experience. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction

are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and

the other begins.

Manifest destiny: Manifest Destiny is a phrase or philosophy that reflects the quest of the United

States for power. Americans believed that the U.S. was destined to conquer lands from the Pacific

to the Atlantic. It is the notion that America is Gods chosen land (normally thought of as Israel)

Megachurches: Churches that have more than 2,000 in attendance each week

Many Protestant mega churches can range from 10,000 - 47,000 in attendance each week

Mosaic (and the Mosaic Myth): That we are multicultural and accepting of other cultures

―National Amnesia‖ we have to forget things that we‘ve done in the past

o Until 1947 Canadian‘s were British subjects

o Racist and classist history

o Slaveholding nation

o Ignored non-white and non-Christian history

o Racist immigration laws

o Anti-Semitism

Muscular Christianity/ Muscular Jesus:

Hyper reality

Political Fundamentalism

Dominionists

National Dreams: Attempts to locate and describe some of the most persistent images and stories

in Canadian History. These are the images and stories that seem to express the fundamental

beliefs that Canadians hold about themselves.

―Core myths‖

What is a nation? A group of people who share the same illusions about themselves

o Imagined communities

o Images are expressed through stories, not by meeting on another (Anderson)

Occident: The western world

Orientalism: It‘s where the west conceives ideas of the orient then imposes their ideas on it. Take

for example where Rev. Thorne comments that the décor makes him hungry for Indian food.

Baber responds that ―we‘re from Pakistan‖, and the Rev responds ―There‘s a difference?‖ That is,

his fixed and inaccurate notions are what he uses to define them.

- Edward Said

- Theory of concepts

- Scholars that study the orient

- The projection of western ideas and concepts onto no-western cultures

- Orient: non- western cultures in general

- Occidental

Postmodernism:

Deletion of the boundary between art and everyday life

The collapse of the hierarchal distinction between elite and popular culture

A stylistic eclecticism and the missing of codes

Parody, pastiche, irony and playfulness

o A deliberate mixing of styles and conventions, the eclectic ―mashing up‖ of

genres without much knowledge or respect for the parent tradition

o ―Deconstruction‖

o e.g., Andy Warhol—everyday life

Rodney Stark: is a Sociologist

Religious economy

o There is a market of current and potentioal religious believers and a set of

organizations seeking to attract them

o A competitive market is a health market

McDonalization:

o The process by which the [principles of the fast food restaurants are coming to

dominate more and more sectors of the world]

Sacred space: a space that is constructed around a sacred object that is experience as the Holy

Other; it is different than the rest of the world

Sacred time: A time outside of time (separate). Ritual gives you access to sacred time because of

the profane time.

Secular humanism:

Idea that universal values can be articulated outside of a religious framework

Mickey mouse was ―the symbol of common humanity in struggle against the forces of

evil‖

The disneyfication of religion then, is the erasing of anything that could be construed as

offensive

Under the rubric of global marketing, Disney is trying to gain the biggest market share/

audience

Yet still promote ―family values‖

Secularization: is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values

and institutions toward nonreligious (or irreligious) values and secular institutions.

A society that doesn‘t focus on religion

Seekers: example George Harrison

John Lennon = postmodernist

Snake charmers and child brides:

If you want to have a popular film in the west, one must show similar things

Does she use these images? And does she get away from this idea?

She exoticsize something that is exotic to us

―The west refuses to acknowledge our achievements in any sphere, but is only interested

in our snake charmers and child brides. And people like Deepa Mehta pander to them‖—

The week magazine, 2000

Making films for the tourist gaze is important to gain audiences

Exotic locale—already there in world cinema

Focusing on child brides isn‘t something she started

In what way can ―water‖ be considered orientalist?

―The west refuses to acknowledge our achievements in any sphere, but is only interested in our

snake charmers and child brides and people like Deepa Mehta pander to them‖

She goes outside of the western gaze and actually writes films about things and issues

that are actually happening like subjugation of women, children, and widows

These films are very different than Bollywood films

Stompin‘ Tom Connors:

1970‘s Canadian musician, had a television show writes about Canada

Spent a decade hitch hiking across Canada, played guitar for money

Ended up in Timmins, realized there were no songs about Canada

Draws on symbols that are Canadian = mosaic, wilderness, passivism

o Also creates new symbols

He wanted to mythologize Canada = mythologized the west

Drew on nationally significant symbols and stories and proliferated these things through

popular culture

His songs sacrilized specific symbols, heroes, events, rituals, and cultural elements of

Canada

Shangri-La:

Invokes images of exoticism of the orient

It invokes a spiritual oasis; a paradise

It is a fictional place

A sort of utopia; people are permanently happy

The people are almost immortal and they live together for longer periods of time

Evokes terms of the exoticism of the orient

Like disneyfication - one sided magical place that waters down what tibet really is

Tibet has long been the object of western fantasy, not understood as country with own

history, only been understood a mythical place

One dimensional magical kingdom that waters down what Tibet/Tibetan Buddhism really

is

The Beatles

John Lennon

o Used Indian artistic and religious influences for his own ends

George Harrison

o Attempted to accept, practice, and promote Indian culture and religion without a western

spin on it

o His influence increases as he gets older and becomes a part of Hinduism for the

rest of his life while John Lennon's influence decreases

The Gospel of Disney

- Good is always rewarded/ evil is always punished

- Faith is essential

- Optimism/hard work pays off

- Differences don‘t matter

- There is a universal human identity, we all want the same thing

- These values are akin to religious values

―The Waste Land‖: The wasteland is the West

T.S Elliot wrote the book ―The Wasteland‖

Significance: critiques the west

Pinnacle of civilization

West is a wasteland, he turns east towards Hinduism, words of wisdom there

Depicted the west as an exhausted well and the east as a source of spiritual wealth

Theosophy: (Theosophical Society)

Founded by Henry Steel Olcott

o First American to convert to Buddhism

o Aims:

Work towards a united human community

Study comparative religion, philosophy and science

Investigate the powers latent in humanity

Buddhist Crossings

DT Suzuki (1870-1966)

Personified Zen to 20th century Americans

Timothy Leary

Pied piper of the psychedelic 60s

"Turn on, Tune in, Drop out"

Promoted drug use

Psychedelic drug use

Got fired from Harvard for giving his students LSD

LSD was new and wasn't illegal at the time

Believed that LSD expanded the mind

Many people thought he was the most dangerous man on the planet

Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

Spiritual regeneration movement aka Transcendental meditation (This guy starts TM)

The love guru satires this

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the Indian guru who first met The Beatles in 1967. They became

fascinated by his techniques of Transcendental Meditation

Special knowledge from the east coming to the west

Increase knowledge, love, and hopefully bring world peace

A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

- The international society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON)

- Aka Hare Krishnas

Transcendentalists

- Heavily influenced by T.S. Elliott ―The Wasteland‖

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) was a part of this group

They started the difference and stereotypes of the west and the east

First in North America to take the eastern religions seriously = Hinduism, Buddhism,

some Asian religions etc.

Wanted to press past non-missionary religions

Believe that the east religions had something to offer the west

Effort to grasp the divinity in nature and in all human beings (kind of sounds like bagger

Vance)

"God is everywhere"

Ralph wrote several essays talking about re-en-carnation and karma

Wade Roof Clark: author of "A Generation of Seekers". He is important because this relates to

Seeker Religiosity: which can be seen as narcissistic, limited, and superficial. Seeker religiosity

has to do with the emergence of the religious marketplace where people can pick and choose their

religions and parts of religion they like and put them together. This is similar to Sheilaism a term

from Robert Bellah's book. Sheilaism is an individuals system of religious beliefs, which uses

strands of multiple religions chosen by the individual usually without much theological

consideration. He says that there is an emphasis on personal experience rather then institutional

religion.

Sample Questions (these are the kinds of questions I will ask but are not necessarily the

exact questions)

1. Name 2 ways the Amar Chitra Katha promoted a national Indian identity.

- They were made as a meaning of teaching ―Indian themes and values‖ to western

educated Indian children who knew western history at the purported expense of Indian

history and mythology

- Amar Chitra Katha truly served the material need to fill the void left by grandparents in

smaller nuclear families by retelling the tales of great Indian epics, mythology, folklore

and fables in a comic book format. And thereon, the series has played an important role

in shaping up the identity of the young ones in post-independence India.

1) Promoted Hindu history as ―Indian‖ history and Hinduism as India‘s national religion.

This representation is obviously not accurate in the sense that India has many other

religions than Hindu.

2) It represented an authoritative version of Hindu mythology for its readers. Hindus

considered it sacred texts. It helped to teach western Indian children about their history.

Promotes national integration. It was foundational texts for religious and national

education. Aided in decolonization.

2. Why, according to Chaudhuri, were critiques of Deepa Mehta as pandering to westerners by

using ―snake charmers and child brides‖ unfair?

Debates about exoticism focus on the inauthenticity of Waters representations, whether it

is its negative portrayal of India, its use of exotic settings and ‗ethnic‘ rituals, or its

sensational melodramatic narrative presenting women and children as pitiful victims of

Third World oppression.

It is alleged that these aesthetic elements are devised to see the film on the multicultural

marketplace and target Western audiences; in other words, they are thought to construct

the film for a foreign tourist gaze.

This idea that exoticist strategies are simply targeted at white or western viewers is

flawed, implying an East/West binary that is not borne our by the demographics of

audiences for Water and other contemporary filmes that use similar strategies.

Need to shift away from discussions of migrant film makers pandering to the western

gaze and the inauthenticity of exotic representations. Instead, an engagement with those

forms of representation themselves show how Water inverts the meanings of the

photographs of Singn and McCurry with which it interfaces.

Mehta creates images that inhibit a continuum between Western regimes of the gaze and

a more embodied, sensory perception, which enables her to play with the screens of

dominant representation, including the traditional Indian sensory regime with its taboos

on touching.

Mehta uses religion to de-exoticize India. Uses religion to resist dominant Indian/Hindu

Norms.

Audience is NOT JUST touristic gaze there is an Asian dispoic audience.

3. How could John Lennon‘s engagement with India be theorized as orientalist?

Because he took what he wanted from the Indian culture and didn‘t take other things. He

didn‘t fully accept India for all that it had to offer and changed the things that he didn‘t

believe in to fit more in his western life style. He liked to take a little bit from here and a

little bit from there to make something that really meant something to him. He imposed

his western views onto certain elements of the Indian culture.

It can be seen as orientalist because John Lennon in comparison to George

Harrison did not embrace Indian culture in a way that allowed him to understand

it from a Indian perspective and its true meaning and values. John Lennon

embraced it because of its exoticism and ultimately viewed Indian in a more

tourist gaze one that ‗others‘ the Indian way of life. George Harrison on the

other hand did not engage in the touristic/western gaze and instead embraced and

learned the values and beliefs of the culture and became emerged within the

culture, trying to live it through.

4. In what way did the canoe play a role in the formation of a Canadian mythology?

Ever since the 1st European traders and colonists arrived in Canada, the canoe journey

into the wilderness has been a theme of history and culture. The canoe carries us out of

our European past deep into the wilderness where we are reborn as citizens of the New

World. The canoe symbolizes Canada because back in the day it was easier to travel

Canada on a canoe rather than walking. The canoe represented wilderness, which is what

being a Canadian is all about. Even people like Tom Thompson who was a very

inspirational painter and Canadian icon was a canoe activist.

5. How did Stompin‘ Tom Connors promote a national mythology?

Stompin‘ Tom Connors promoted a national mythology because he traveled around Canada

singing about everywhere that he went. He realized that there were no songs about

Canada and what it means to be Canadian. He wanted people to know what it is like to be

a Canadian and also give Canadians a sense of self and belonging when you would hear

his songs. He used our national sport, hockey, and sang about how important it is to us.

He draws on other symbols that are Canadian such as the mosaic, wilderness and

passivism. He wanted to mythologized the west and did this by picking important

symbols and brought it through popular culture.

6. Who created the myth of the mosaic?

Government agencies and private corporations for their own selfish reasons invented myths.

Victoria Hayward, ―a mosaic of vast dimensions and great breadth‖ (1922)

Kate Foster, Our Canadian Mosaic (1926)

John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic, CPR publicist (1938)

7. How can the Tales of Durga be thought of as an example of the Disneyfication of religion?

The Tales of Durga issue is based on the Devi Mahantmya. In the story Durga shoots her

arrows at the demon, and from every drop of blood that the demon sheds a new demon

arises. This has a symbolic meaning, meaning that you can‘t cure violence with more

violence. This meaning is a lot like the meanings in the Gospel of Disney, which shows

that bad, does not get rewarded. Just like Disney, these stories have meaning and teach

lessons. The tales of durga is an example of disneyfication of religion because it is taking

this sacred story and showing it to people as a lesson in a watered down, easier to read

fashion. The comic books are easier and lighter to read so that children are able to

understand them as well and are being entertained while reading them so it doesn‘t

exactly feel like they are learning about the past but they are interested in what it

happening through the great stories. They are also able to learn moral code which it

shown through disneyfication of the tales of durga that can be marketed and sold all

around the world. This comic book is not only sold in India but is also accepted in the

western world.

8. How is Holy Cow both similar to and different from Indian travel guides?

Holy Cow is similar to a travel guide because it explores many experiences that Sarah

Macdonald goes through while she is visiting there. It explains where she had went and

what she had seen which is like what a normal travel guide would do. The book also

gives detailed histories of the religions there and facts that would be important to know

when traveling there. It tells you places to visit and places to stay away from but travel

guides usually are trying to make you want to go to the certain destination. How it is

different than a regular travel guide is that it doesn‘t promote everything in India and it

starts off by saying how much she hated it and how dirty it was. She starts off not really

accepting or knowing much about their culture and religions but as the book goes on she

learns and teaches you the history and facts that she learns about the country and makes it

look interesting for the western world to come and visit. It differs in the sense that Sarah

actually part takes in the culture, immerses herself and tries to understand the values and

beliefs of the culture and why. This is different from travel guides because travel guides

are all about seeing and hearing and tasting and not necessarily understanding the

meaning behind the things you are seeing, hearing, and tasting.

9. Provide examples of how Sarah MacDonald goes beyond Deepa Mehta‘s fixed images of India

in Holy Cow

Sarah MacDonald goes beyond Deepa Mehta‘s fixed images of India in Holy Cow…

Fixed Images – There are several conceptions that prevail in the west about India. There

is firstly the spiritual India – a place where you go and find nirvana. Secondly, there is

the conception that India is entirely poverty stricken, with a permanent kid of begging

bowl attitude.

Fixed Images: It is uncomfortable and difficult for some filmmaker to produce works that

destroy these perceptions. India brings specifically fixed images in many western minds,

and the minute you start de-exoticising that you have to deal with Indians as real people

and there is pressure not to do that.

More Fixed Images: poverty stricken, massive ghetto, spiritual wonderland, magical

place of enlightenment, timeless exotic era.

10. Provide specific examples from Sarah MacDonald‘s Holy Cow that demonstrates how

this book fits into all 4 of Forbes and Mahan‘s categories.

Religion in Popular Culture is found in Sarah Macdonald‘s, Holy Cow because the novel is a

medium of popular culture and she explains different religions. She undergoes a 10-day of silence

and goes through the rituals of the religion. You can find actual facts about Buddhism and other

religions if you read the book. You are learning about the religions but are also being entertained

through her sense of humor. For example you learn that she goes to 5 Parsi homes and notice that

they have an obsession with purity and it goes beyond wearing masks for some ceremonies and

staying away from menstruating women. Their houses are noticeably very clean.

Popular culture in religion is also seen in this novel because Jonathan, Sarah‘s fiancé, is the

Australian Broadcasting Company‘s South Asia correspondent based in New Delhi. They

broadcast all over India showing their culture and religion. People are able to learn about the

culture if they watch the broadcasts that Jonathan makes.

Popular culture as a religion is examined when Sarah meets a guru. Sarah used to work for

MTV before she moved to New Delhi and she brings it up to a Guru when he hands her a CD of

songs he had made. This guru is showing her a different version of Yoga that is supposed to bring

you closer to God but his version is all about being creative, using a guitar, singing and dancing.

His form of Yoga is bringing popular culture into his religion by having a sing along in his Yoga.

These songs and dances are a part of his religion.

Religion and popular culture in Dialogue is ―ethical concerns and values that are challenged,

promoted, compared, contrasted, condemned and subverted‖. This is seen in the novel when

Sarah and Jonathan go to see Parsis‘s Holy Vatican. The sign on the door reads ―no intruders, no

filming, no photos, and no non-parsis‖, they are shocked because although Sarah was thrown out

of Judaism, she is not used to not being welcomed by the Indian culture. They were not allowed

into the Vatican. It is also found when Sarah talks about how India is dominated by males.

Women are to wear the proper clothing, not stare right into a man‘s eyes and be a wife at home.

Dialogue in the novel is very important because it shows the barriers between men and women

and shows distrinction between sexism, segregation and misogyny.