Fabricating Authenticity
Edited by
Jason W.M. Ellsworth [+–]
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a Research Fellow, doctoral candidate, and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on 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 [+–]
Leibniz University Hannover
Andie Alexander is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for the Study of Religion at Leibniz University Hannover. She is co-editor (with Jason W. M. Ellsworth) of Fabricating Authenticity (Equinox, forthcoming) and is Managing Editor of The Religious Studies Project. Her research focuses on identity construction, discourses of difference and experience, and conceptions of the individual as a way to examine how post-9/11 discourses of inclusivity and pluralism implicitly work as a form of governance and subject-making which construct and constrain the liberal Muslim subject.
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 Associate 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, methodological issues concerning the use of the category of “religion” in the study of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, as well as the study 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 Research Fellow, doctoral candidate, and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on the study of the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, Marketing, Transnationalism, and Orientalism.
Leibniz University Hannover
Andie Alexander is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for the Study of Religion at Leibniz University Hannover. She is co-editor (with Jason W. M. Ellsworth) of Fabricating Authenticity (Equinox, forthcoming) and is Managing Editor of The Religious Studies Project. Her research focuses on identity construction, discourses of difference and experience, and conceptions of the individual as a way to examine how post-9/11 discourses of inclusivity and pluralism implicitly work as a form of governance and subject-making which construct and constrain the liberal Muslim subject.
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
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.
Chapter 2
Beyond Authenticity? [+–]
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.
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
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a Research Fellow, doctoral candidate, and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on 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.
Chapter 4
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 5
The Open University
Christopher Cotter is Staff Tutor (Lecturer) in Sociology & Religious Studies at The Open University. 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.
Chapter 6
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 7
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.
Chapter 8
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sierra L. Lawson is a doctoral student in the Religion and Culture track in the department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sierra’s current work examines competing transatlantic discourses on maternal health within visual and textual archives. She is specifically interested in the devotional labor of “Morisca” women in the Ebro region and women in early Andean colonies as mutually influenced by and influencing imperial grammars for classifying ‘religion.’ In studying rhetorics of devotion she has previously focused on communities who describe themselves as Marian—and, specifically, Guadalupan—devotees.
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.
Chapter 10
University of Victoria, PhD candidate
Stacie Swain is a Ukrainian-British doctoral student in the Department of Political Science and the Indigenous Nationhood Program at the University of Victoria, in lək̓ʷəŋən territories (Victoria, B.C.). Her research considers the intersection of Indigenous ceremony with the categories of religion and politics, particularly in relation to settler colonialism, Indigenous legal orders, and the governance of public space.
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
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.
Chapter 12
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 13
Avila University
Leslie Dorrough Smith is Professor of Religious Studies at Avila University and a member of the Women’s and Gender Studies faculty.
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
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 15
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.
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 16
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 17
In Their Own Terms [+–]
University of Alabama
Vaia Touna is Associate 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, methodological issues concerning the use of the category of “religion” in the study of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, as well as the study 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.
Chapter 18
University of Chicago
Marshall Cunningham is a postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago where he studies the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. His current research focuses on processes of identity construction among Judeans and Judean communities in the sixth and fifth centuries ʙᴄᴇ. At its core, his research concerned with how communities — ancient and modern — come to envision and define themselves in the wake of major geographical, political, and cultural change.
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 19
Leibniz University Hannover
Andie Alexander is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for the Study of Religion at Leibniz University Hannover. She is co-editor (with Jason W. M. Ellsworth) of Fabricating Authenticity (Equinox, forthcoming) and is Managing Editor of The Religious Studies Project. Her research focuses on identity construction, discourses of difference and experience, and conceptions of the individual as a way to examine how post-9/11 discourses of inclusivity and pluralism implicitly work as a form of governance and subject-making which construct and constrain the liberal Muslim subject.
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 20
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 21
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.
Chapter 22
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 23
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), Taking ‘Religion’ Seriously: Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion (Brill 2022) and more than 70 articles in journals and edited volumes.
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 24
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 25
Fullerton College
Martha Smith Roberts is Assistant Professor of Religion at Fullerton College. Martha’s teaching covers all aspects of religion in culture and the diversity of religious traditions around the world. Her research and writing focus on North American religious diversity and pluralism, race and ethnicity, new religious movements, and religious studies pedagogy. She has written articles on hula hooping, communities of practice, antiracist pedagogy, and religious diversity and pluralism 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 26
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Israel L. Domínguez is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 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 decolonizing, 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 27
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.
Chapter 28
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.
Afterword
Leibniz University Hannover
Andie Alexander is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for the Study of Religion at Leibniz University Hannover. She is co-editor (with Jason W. M. Ellsworth) of Fabricating Authenticity (Equinox, forthcoming) and is Managing Editor of The Religious Studies Project. Her research focuses on identity construction, discourses of difference and experience, and conceptions of the individual as a way to examine how post-9/11 discourses of inclusivity and pluralism implicitly work as a form of governance and subject-making which construct and constrain the liberal Muslim subject.
Dalhousie University
Jason W. M. Ellsworth is a Research Fellow, doctoral candidate, and sessional Lecturer in the Sociology & Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on 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.
