[Commlist] CFP - 21st Century Magic and Spirituality in Media and Culture

21^st  Century Magic and Spirituality in Media and Culture

Friday, 30^th  June 2023, Goldsmiths, University of London

Call for Papers

The 21^st  century has seen an exponential rise of what can be loosely 
defined as spiritual media and culture – virtual worlds are replete with 
reports of mystical experiences, and astrology apps, tarot readings on 
TikTok, or wicca influencers on YouTube can attract millions of 
subscribers, followers, and views. What used to be marginal, esoteric 
“structures of feeling” (Williams, 1977) belonging outside of the 
socially prescribed, institutional frameworks are now visibly in the 
mainstream, offering different models of identities, entrepreneurships, 
and engaged in meaning making practices that are often lodged between 
the sacred and the trivial. How can we, in media and cultural studies, 
critically engage with these practices that are no longer liminal and 
covert, but are proliferating in the mainstream media and culture? Does 
this abundance of digital spiritual spaces and acceleration of ‘new’ 
cultural experiences simply reproduce the “illegitimate knowledge” 
(Katz, 2014), thus making it more observable? And if spiritual cultures 
are a response to ontological insecurities, what kinds of meanings and 
values do they produce and disseminate?

The aim of this symposium is to provide a platform for inter- and cross- 
disciplinary dialogue about old/new spiritual cultures, occulture and 
magic practices in the 21^st  century. Its purpose is to engage with 
epistemic tensions situated within the discursive ‘return’ to 
mythologies of pre-modern enchantments, and to examine emerging 
political, environmental, economic, and cultural dynamics that define 
spiritual practices in 21^st  century.

We invite papers to address the following themes:

  * Spirituality and/as decolonial praxis
  * Spirituality and emotional labour
  * Spirituality and politics of identity
  * Commodification of spirituality
  * Re-enchantment in the media
  * Cultural value and legitimacy of spiritual practices
  * Conspirituality and disinformation
  * Spirituality and environmentalism
  * Creative industries and spirituality
Please submit a 250-word abstract and 50-word biography to Vana Goblot – 
(v.goblot /at/ gold.ac.uk) by 26^th  April 2023.


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