2.4 Corrections to Fandom-as-Religion Literature
In his article, “Is Elvis a God?,” Frow questions whether we have a methodological approach to understand dead celebrity, particularly its religious dimensions. One of the more apt comments on the use of the religion analogy stems from Frow, “The religious relation exists midway between a dead metaphor and a theory which has yet to find itself” (1998, 200). Using relevant literature on Presley (Harrison 1992; Spiegel 1990; Vikan 1994; Rodman 1996) and Rudolf Otto’s notion of religious experience, Frow seeks to find the right approach to understand the “cult of dead celebrity” (as he calls it) and where cultural studies, as a discipline, failed. In this endeavor, Frow seeks to understand why a dead celebrity, like Elvis, is more popular in death, whether there is more to the religious metaphor, and how religious experience became central to something seemingly secular (1998, 2014). This article is exploratory in nature as Frow never fully finalizes his approach, but rather provides methodological considerations. Part of the difficulty Frow struggles with, and uses Otto to try and understand, is there appears to be a difficult to describe, transcendent quality to what many scholars of religion and popular culture call a …show more content…
He does not completely let go of the religious dimensions of fandom, but acknowledges cultural studies found itself lacking the tools and method to pursue the (possible) religious dimensions of fandom. This dissertation seeks to account for these difficulties and offer alternative modes of interpretation. There are a few moderate scholars in the celebrity music Fandom-as-Religion debate and, indeed, the extreme arguments for celebrity music Fandom-as-Religion, for the most part, were left behind in the decades that
In his article, “Is Elvis a God?,” Frow questions whether we have a methodological approach to understand dead celebrity, particularly its religious dimensions. One of the more apt comments on the use of the religion analogy stems from Frow, “The religious relation exists midway between a dead metaphor and a theory which has yet to find itself” (1998, 200). Using relevant literature on Presley (Harrison 1992; Spiegel 1990; Vikan 1994; Rodman 1996) and Rudolf Otto’s notion of religious experience, Frow seeks to find the right approach to understand the “cult of dead celebrity” (as he calls it) and where cultural studies, as a discipline, failed. In this endeavor, Frow seeks to understand why a dead celebrity, like Elvis, is more popular in death, whether there is more to the religious metaphor, and how religious experience became central to something seemingly secular (1998, 2014). This article is exploratory in nature as Frow never fully finalizes his approach, but rather provides methodological considerations. Part of the difficulty Frow struggles with, and uses Otto to try and understand, is there appears to be a difficult to describe, transcendent quality to what many scholars of religion and popular culture call a …show more content…
He does not completely let go of the religious dimensions of fandom, but acknowledges cultural studies found itself lacking the tools and method to pursue the (possible) religious dimensions of fandom. This dissertation seeks to account for these difficulties and offer alternative modes of interpretation. There are a few moderate scholars in the celebrity music Fandom-as-Religion debate and, indeed, the extreme arguments for celebrity music Fandom-as-Religion, for the most part, were left behind in the decades that