Page - 143 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

| 143www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 143–148 Stefanie Knauss Book review John C. Lyden/Eric Michael Mazur (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture London/New York: Routledge 2015, xvii + 583 pp., ISBN 978-0-415-63866-1 From television to fashion, from sport stadiums to electronic dance music events, from Hinduism to contemporary Paganism – with its 28 chapters, The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture comprises a vast array of “Mediated encounters”, “Material encounters”, “Locative encounters” and “Religious traditions”, as the four sections of the collection are titled. As John Lyden’s introductory chapter, entitled “Definitions”, notes, the three terms in- volved here – “religion”, “culture”, “popular” – are all notoriously difficult to pin down, and thus this volume takes the approach of embracing the blurriness of these categories’ boundaries and casting its net as wide as possible, both with regard to the material discussed (including not just television, popular literature or music, but also food, fashion, toys, kitsch and monuments/memorials), and with regard to the forms the encounter between religion and popular culture may take. Lyden writes, “We cannot precisely define where religion leaves off and culture begins, or vice versa; and that’s okay. This does not erase our disci- pline. Rather, this reveals what we are actually doing; we are constructing our own identity out of a variety of materials, and not refusing to consider materials for being either too ‘popular’ or too ‘religious’” (19). The first section focuses on prominent media of popular culture: television, journalism, film, radio, music, video and Internet games, the Internet and so- cial networking, and advertising. Although the exclusion of comics or popular literature from this section could seem somewhat arbitrary, the focus here is on audio-visual, electronic mass media and how they facilitate the encounter between religion and popular culture in their representations, forms of com- munication and community building or through practices that are analogous to religious practices. Thus, Elijah Siegler discusses television in terms of its vari- ous religious roles, based on Weber’s types of religious leadership: in its priestly function, it conservatively affirms shared values and provides social stability, in particular by reinforcing Protestant ethics over against those portrayed as “oth- er” (Catholics, atheists, and fanatics). Yet this is not all there is to television;