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Masculine Religious Conflict in Christianity and Islam

Submitted to Program Units
1: Religion, Media, and Culture Unit

Sana Patel, University of Ottawa, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This papers session investigates the media construction of masculine religious conflict, with presentations that range across regional contexts in South Korea, Somalia, the United Kingdom, and United States. Christians and Muslims circulate a diverse range of media as emergent institutional domains for the expression of religious discourse – masculine in either focus or presentation. Such media includes popular music and memes, warzone photographs, alter egos developed through alternative “free speech” social media platforms, niche market evangelical films, and peripheral comedy-drama television series. The stakes and implications of this session, a study of “lived religion” through media, include the following: popular critiques of established institutions, demonization of political opponents, historical distortions online, plasticity of social media identity formation, moral sensationalism, and subsidiary status of women.

Papers

  • Eunjin Jeon, University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology

    Meme, Mediatization, and Lived Religion: Case Study of Zior Park’s ‘Christian' in K-Pop Culture

    Abstract

    K-pop singer Zior Park's "Christian" song, reaching 11 million views in 2023, critiques religious hypocrisy within Christianity. This paper examines the impact of related religious memes on understanding religion in South Korea and fostering religious dialogue. Situated within the framework of memes, mediatization, and lived religion, the study analyzes how "Christian" sparks discussions on Korean religious piety, gender norms, and materialism, challenging both believers and non-believers. Through exploration of diverse memes, from Buddhist interpretations to critiques of North Korea, it reveals the multifaceted nature of religious discourse on South Korean social media. Moreover, it highlights the role of religious memes in promoting open discourse, blurring sacred and profane boundaries, and inspiring creative memetic expressions on religious matters. By studying Zior Park's "Christian" and its associated memes, this research offers insights into the evolving dynamics between memes, mediatization, and lived religion.

  • Christopher Glen White, Vassar College

    “This is your Enemy”: Spiritual Warfare against Muslim Demons in Mogadishu and Beyond

    Abstract

    In this presentation I examine how American evangelicals reproduce and mediate the demonic supernatural and link it to non-Christians and political opponents. I examine one case in particular—the case of US Army Lt. General Jerry Boykin, who fought in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu and brought home supernatural photographs of the conflict. Boykin took photographs from a helicopter that seemed to show a shadowy figure in the sky over the city.  Back home in the U.S., he spoke at several churches about this. In this presentation I will talk about how Boykin and other evangelicals produce visual evidence of the demonic, how they (then and now) sometimes link this kind of visual evidence to Islam, and how related media (such as the film Black Hawk Down) all combine to create a representational regime that buttresses evangelical identity, rationalizes Christian missionary failures in Muslim-majority countries, and justifies ongoing western spiritual and political intervention.

  • Spencer Kunz, Florida State University

    Popular Medievalism, Sacred Hierarchy, and the "Crusader Persona" in Twenty-First-Century Christian Nationalism

    Abstract

    In the twenty-first century, online media help U.S. Christian nationalists to divorce eye-catching, quasi-medieval imagery from its historical narrative. The internet’s relative anonymity encourages U.S. Christian nationalists to remake themselves in the (fictionalized) image of the crusader. By portraying themselves and their political ideals as the direct descendants of the Western ordo militaris (e.g., Knights Templar), Christian nationalist crusaders imbue their cause with a sense of historical authenticity, and themselves with the chivalric splendor of the martial aristocracy. This paper observes alternative “free speech” social media platforms (e.g., Gab, Truth Social) to analyze the role of medieval ethos in U.S. Christian nationalism. In conclusion, the paper suggests that popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages, combined with the plasticity of social media identity formation, foster an environment in which U.S. Christian nationalists construe themselves as continuing a cultural struggle that dates back to medieval Europe.

  • Matthew Konerth, Independent Scholar

    The Gazeless Male Gaze: Maintaining Misogyny in Evangelical Anti-Pornographic Media

    Abstract

    The proposed essay will utilize textual analysis of several of the more successful examples of Evangelical anti-pornographic media, as well as a brief exploration of the fundamentals of porn studies and feminist film theory.  Through the combination of these fields the essay will use the proliferation of Evangelical anti-pornographic media to define and analyze the ‘Gazeless Male Gaze’, emphasizing on the importance of women’s agency and the dangers of symbolic annihilation.

    In 1975, Laura Mulvey defined the Male Gaze as the voyeuristic objectification of women within cinema for a perceived all male audience by male filmmakers. (Mulvey, 58-69)  The Gazeless Male Gaze maintains the same patriarchy and the same objectification within cinema as Mulvey’s Male Gaze with the voyeurism removed.  Evangelical Anti-Pornographic films may not be literally gazing upon women, yet by patronizingly removing their voices from the subject of porn studies these films continue in women’s objectification.  

  • Tazeen Ali, Washington University, Saint Louis

    Narratives of Islamophobia on American and British TV: The Specter of the Violent Muslim Man in Hulu’s Ramy & Netflix’s Man Like Mobeen

    Abstract

    This paper investigates how narratives of Islamophobia, specifically the trope of the violent Muslim man, appear in two comedy-drama series created by Muslim producers: Ramy (2019) and Man Like Mobeen (2016). Previous scholarship has attended to anti-Muslim bias in entertainment media by situating them within discourses of sympathy. These analyses have attested to how show producers, both Muslim and non-Muslim, uphold multiculturalism and inclusivity as Western liberal values, and present instances of racism as exceptions rather than the norm (Shaheen 2006, Alsultany 2012, Conway 2017). I argue in this paper that performances of Islamophobia in Ramy and Man Like Mobeen, function as a critique of the limits of liberal inclusion for Muslims and lay bare racism as endemic, rather than exceptional, to American and British societies. Moreover, these series demonstrate how Muslim masculinity is necessarily formed in tandem with the image of the violent Muslim terrorist. 

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Schedule Preference Other

Sunday 9:00-11:00am
Schedule Info

Monday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Tags

# memes
K-Pop
photography
Gab
Truth Social
Christploitation
#pornography
#Islamophobia
Evangelical Muslim Spiritual Warfare Demon Demonic Supernatural Media
Islamophobia
Muslim masculinities
Islam in America
British Islam
Muslims in popular culture
television
Ramy
Man Like Mobeen

Session Identifier

A25-225