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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.
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