Fabricating Authenticity
Edited by
Jason W.M. Ellsworth [+–]
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a doctoral candidate and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. Current and past research interests include the study of the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, Marketing, Transnationalism, and Orientalism.
Andie Alexander [+–]
Emory University
Andie Alexander is a doctoral student in American Religious Cultures at Emory University. Her research focuses on identity construction, boundary formation, and rhetorics of experience as a way to examine the implicit religious rhetoric in pro-immigration discourses and how such rhetoric ultimately works to Americanize immigrants in the US.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge.
Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Series: Working with Culture on the Edge
Table of Contents
Preface
Preface [+–]
University of Alabama
Vaia Touna is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is author of Fabrications of the Greek Past: Religion, Tradition, and the Making of Modern Identities (Brill, 2017) and editor of Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity: Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place (Equinox, 2019). Her research focuses on the sociology of religion, acts of identification and social formation, as well as methodological issues concerning the study of religion in the ancient Graeco-Roman world and of the past in general.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Introduction
Introduction [+–]
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a doctoral candidate and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. Current and past research interests include the study of the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, Marketing, Transnationalism, and Orientalism.
Emory University
Andie Alexander is a doctoral student in American Religious Cultures at Emory University. Her research focuses on identity construction, boundary formation, and rhetorics of experience as a way to examine the implicit religious rhetoric in pro-immigration discourses and how such rhetoric ultimately works to Americanize immigrants in the US.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 1
TBC [+–]
St. Thomas Aquinas College
Craig Martin, Ph.D., is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He writes on discourse analysis and ideology critique; his most recent books include Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie (Bloomsbury, 2014) and A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion, 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2017).
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of Alabama
Savannah H. Finver is currently working on her Masters in Religion in Culture at the University of Alabama, expected to graduate in May 2020. Her research interests lie in how religion is discussed and defined within American law and politics, as well as how these debates influence and shape group identities in the United States.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 2
Naming Things [+–]
University of Alabama
Steven W. Ramey is a Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, where he also directs the Asian Studies Program. His specialty is in contemporary issues surrounding identifications in India, which he addresses in his book Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh (Palgrave 2008), where he analyzes specifically the practices and contested definitions of communities identified as Sindhi Hindus. He has extended this analysis to reflect on issues in the academic and public discourse surrounding the category religion and issues of identifications in the United States and other contexts.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Annie Rose O’Brien is a Religious Studies PhD student at UNC-CH, concentrating in Religion in the Americas. Her work explores the intersection of race, religion, and violence in the American South, focusing on historic and contemporary rituals of white supremacy.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 3
Avila University
Dr. Dorrough Smith’s most recent research focuses on the cultural significance of American Conservative Protestant rhetoric, with special emphasis on the Christian Right. Many scholars who study the Christian Right (NCR) often account for the movement’s popularity and distinction by pointing to its absolutist moral positions, its religious fervor, and its selective embrace of seemingly anti-modernist platforms. Unlike other theories of conservative power that focus on the allure of such moral absolutes, Dr. Dorrough Smith’s work shows how these absolutes are really not the defining quality of the movement. Rather, they are the byproduct of a certain type of rhetoric (which she calls “chaos rhetoric”) that uses chaos, rather than order, imagery to induce persuasion and thereby secure social power. Her work focuses on the linguistic engineering involved in producing chaos rhetoric, and how such movements depend on the strategic manipulation of specific cultural symbols to naturalize and “sell” their political interests.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
Arizona State University
Nevada S. Drollinger-Smith is a PhD student in the Anthropology of Religion track at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on masculinity, purity, and The Manosphere.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 4
University of Manitoba
Matt Sheedy holds a Ph.D. in the study of religion and is a visiting professor in the department of North American Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. His research interests include critical social theory, theories of secularism and atheism, as well as representations of Christianity, Islam, and Native American traditions in popular and political culture. He is currently working on a book called Contesting the Secular: Religious Symbols, Identity Politics, and the Fragility of “Western” Values.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Yasmine Flodin-Ali obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School. She has a background in interfaith and educational equity work and has worked for non-profits such as the Pluralism Project and College Possible. Yasmine is currently an Islamic Studies PhD student in the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the history of race and religion as modern categories of difference by examining the racialization of South Asian American Muslims and African American Muslims from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 5
University of Edinburgh
Christopher R. Cotter is Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is co-founder of The Religious Studies Project, co-editor of After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies (Routledge, 2016) and author of The Critical Study of Non-Religion: Discourse, Identification, Locality (Bloomsbury, 2020).
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ping-hsiu Alice Lin is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 6
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a doctoral candidate and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. Current and past research interests include the study of the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, Marketing, Transnationalism, and Orientalism.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of Victoria
Rachel D. Brown is the Program Coordinator and Religious Studies Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She has a PhD in Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University and specializes in food, migration, lived religion, and contemporary Islam. Rachel has published multiple journal articles and book chapters on food and migration, Muslim integration in France, the experience of minority religious communities in the Pacific Northwest, and researcher positionality and knowledge production, and is currently working on a monograph titled Consuming Identity: Food, Drink and Muslim Experience in Paris and Montreal.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 7
University of Alabama
Russell T. McCutcheon is University Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, USA. He publishes widely on the history of the study of religion, the tools scholars use in their work, and the practical implications of that work. Among his recent publications are Reading J. Z. Smith (with Willi Braun; Oxford University Press, 2018), ‘Religion’ in Theory and Practice (Equinox Publishing, 2018) and Fabricating Religion (de Gruyter, 2018).
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
Dawson College
Ian Alexander Cuthbertson is a professor in the Humanities Department at Dawson College in Montréal, Québec. Ian is broadly interested in exploring how the category “religion” is deployed to legitimize certain beliefs, practices, and institutions while delegitimizing others. Ian lives in Montréal with his wife Virginia and beloved cat Mickey.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 8
Florida State University
Tara Baldrick-Morrone is a Ph.D. candidate in Religions of Western Antiquity at Florida State University. Her research considers how early and modern Christian communities use discourse about abortion to create difference and define the boundaries of normative Christian identity.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sierra Lynn Lawson is a doctoral student in the Religion and Culture track at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She studies rhetorics of devotion, previously focusing on communities who describe themselves as devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Her current work examines discourses on religion in the Atlantic world with a particular interest in how social identities were constructed during the early modern period in the Iberian Peninsula.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 9
University of Alabama
Richard W. Newton, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. His research examines the making of social difference in light of the anthropology of scriptures. He also curates the teacher-scholar multimedia resource, Sowing the Seed: Fruitful Conversations in Religion, Culture, and Teaching (sowingtheseed.org).
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of Victoria
Stacie A. Swain is a PhD student in Political Science with a certificate in Indigenous Nationhood at the University of Victoria, in Lekwungen territories. Her research considers Indigenous ceremony and political authority in public spaces and institutions at the intersection of political science, religious studies, and Indigenous and settler colonial studies.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 10
Emory University
Andie Alexander is a doctoral student in American Religious Cultures at Emory University. Her research focuses on identity construction, boundary formation, and rhetorics of experience as a way to examine the implicit religious rhetoric in pro-immigration discourses and how such rhetoric ultimately works to Americanize immigrants in the US.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
Independent Scholar
Daniel Jones is an independent scholar, editor, writer, and educator whose research focuses on the intersection of religious, environmental, resource extraction, and science and technology discourses. Daniel received an MA in Religious Studies from Missouri State University, and currently edits the American Religion section of the journal Religious Studies Review.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 11
TBC [+–]
University of Helsinki
Teemu Taira is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion, University of Helsinki. His publications include Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred (Ashgate 2013, co-authored with Kim Knott & Elizabeth Poole) and more than 70 articles in journals and edited volumes. In the area of atheism, he has published several articles, one monograph (in Finnish) and edited journal issue about the new visibility of atheism. For more information, see teemutaira.wordpress.com.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
Wilfrid Laurier University-University of Waterloo
Zabeen Khamisa is a doctoral candidate in the joint Wilfrid Laurier University-University of Waterloo PhD, Religious Diversity in North America. Zabeen’s research interests include religion and socio-political movements, Sikhism in North America, digital religion, the sociology and anthropology of religion, and cultural economics. Her dissertation research is focused on progressive Sikh millennials in Canada.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 12
Denison University
Martha Smith Roberts is Assistant Professor of Religion at Denison University. Her primary research is a critical analysis of post-racial and post-ethnic theories of American religious pluralism. Roberts is also working on a co-authored manuscript analyzing the various spiritualities emerging within the hula hooping subculture. She is the Executive Secretary and Treasurer for the North American Association for the Study of Religion, and she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life in Austin, Texas.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Israel L. Domínguez is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a BA in religious studies from The University of Texas at Austin and an MA in religious studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. A queer Tejano born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, Gloria Anzaldúa’s work has always highly resonated with him and inspired his current research on curanderismo of the US-Mexico border and its intersections with decoloniality, disability theory, and queer theory.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 13
The Moves we Make [+–]
University of Alabama
K. Merinda Simmons is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Graduate Director of the Religion in Culture MA Program at the University of Alabama. Her books include Changing the Subject: Writing Women across the African Diaspora (Ohio State UP, 2014), The Trouble with Post-Blackness (co-edited with Houston A. Baker, Jr., Columbia UP, 2015), and Race and New Modernisms (co-authored with James A. Crank, Bloomsbury, 2019). She is editor of the book series Concepts in the Study of Religion: Critical Primers (Equinox).
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Hinasahar Muneeruddin is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Islamic Studies track of the Religious Studies program and currently pursuing her graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies. Her research lies at the intersections of Islam, gender, race, affect, and performativity.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Chapter 14
In Their Own Terms [+–]
University of Alabama
Vaia Touna is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is author of Fabrications of the Greek Past: Religion, Tradition, and the Making of Modern Identities (Brill, 2017) and editor of Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity: Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place (Equinox, 2019). Her research focuses on the sociology of religion, acts of identification and social formation, as well as methodological issues concerning the study of religion in the ancient Graeco-Roman world and of the past in general.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Response [+–]
University of Chicago
Marshall A. Cunningham is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago where he studies the Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context. His research focuses on Judean communities in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, with a particular interest in the roles that religion, trauma, and diaspora play in the construction of social identity.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
Afterword
Afterword [+–]
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a doctoral candidate and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. Current and past research interests include the study of the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, Marketing, Transnationalism, and Orientalism.
Emory University
Andie Alexander is a doctoral student in American Religious Cultures at Emory University. Her research focuses on identity construction, boundary formation, and rhetorics of experience as a way to examine the implicit religious rhetoric in pro-immigration discourses and how such rhetoric ultimately works to Americanize immigrants in the US.
Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised posts that originally appeared on the blog for Culture on the Edge — an international research collaborative that analyzes strategies of identification. The newly envisioned main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Here, authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label that is used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation. Building on the main chapters, Fabricating Authenticity is a collaborative enterprise that engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a more substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity. Together with the main chapters and responses, Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, thus making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.
