The Religious Dimensions of Advertising

207 Pages·2006·0.63 MB·English

by  Tricia Sheffield

The Religious Dimensions of Advertising
Religion/Culture/Critique
Series editor: Elizabeth A. Castelli
How Hysterical: Identification and Resistance in the Bible and Film
By Erin Runions
(2003)
Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination
in India
By Anne Feldhaus
(2003)
Representing Religion in World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking,
Culture Making
Edited by S. Brent Plate
(2003)
Derrida’s Bible (Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help
from Derrida)
Edited by Yvonne Sherwood
(2004)
Feminist New Testament Studies: Global and Future Perspectives
Edited by Kathleen O’Brien Wicker, Althea Spencer Miller,
and Musa W. Dube
(2005)
Women’s Renunciation in South Asia: Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and
Singers
Edited by Meena Khandelwal, Sondra L. Hausner, and
Ann Grodzins Gold
(2006)
Retheorizing Religion in Nepal
By Gregory Price Grieve
(2006)
The Religious Dimensions of Advertising
By Tricia Sheffield
(2006)
Gender, Religion, and Culture in the Premodern World
Edited by Brian Britt and Alexandra Cuffel
(2007)
T R D
HE ELIGIOUS IMENSIONS
A
OF DVERTISING
TRICIA SHEFFIELD
THERELIGIOUSDIMENSIONSOFADVERTISING
© Tricia Sheffield,2006.
Permission citation:
Portions of chapter 1 and chapter 3 were first published as a
supplementary article entitled “Advertising”by Tricia Sheffield in Religion
and American Cultures:An Encyclopedia of Traditions,Diversity,and Popular
Expressions,Volume 2,edited by Gary Laderman and Luis Leon,
Santa Barbara,CA:ABC-CLIO,2003.Permission granted for use by the
publisher.Sections “Policing the Body:Foucault’s Theory of the Body as
Inscriptive Surface”and “Embodied Subjectivity and the Oppositional
Gaze”in chapter 5 were first published in “Cover Girls:Toward a Theory of
Female Divine Embodiment,”in TheJournal of Religion and Society,Volume 4,
edited by Ronald Simkins,Omaha,Nebraska:Creighton University,2002.
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2006 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
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Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN-13:978–1–4039–7470–9
ISBN-10:1–4039–7470–5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sheffield,Tricia.
The Religious dimensions of advertising / Tricia Sheffield.
p.cm.—(Religion/culture/critique)
Includes bibliographical references
ISBN 1–4039–7470–5 (alk.paper)
1.Religion in advertising.2.Consumption (Economics)—Religious
aspects.I.Title.II.Series.
HF5821.S49 2006
659.1—dc22 2006043261
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:November 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
For my grandmother,
Hazel Gregg
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Contents
Series Editor’s Preface ix
Preface xi
Introduction 1
1 Totemic Desires 11
2 Worshiping a Totem: Emile Durkheim’s
Theories of Religion 33
3 Locating Religious Dimensions in the History
of Advertising 53
4 The Religious Dimensions of Advertising in the
Culture of Consumer Capitalism 101
5 Refusing to be an Advertisement: Enacting
Disruptive Performative Identities against
the Religious Dimensions of Advertising 133
Notes 153
Bibliography 179
Index 185
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Series Editor’s Preface
RELIGION/CULTURE/CRITIQUEis a series devoted to publishing work
that addresses religion’s centrality to a wide range of settings and
debates, both contemporary and historical, and that critically
engages the category of “religion” itself. This series is conceived as a
place where readers will be invited to explore how “religion”—
whether embedded in texts, practices, communities, or ideologies—
intersects with social and political interests, institutions, and
identities.
In a 1921 fragment, “Capitalism as Religion,” Walter Benjamin
engaged in a brief and provocative thought-experiment aimed at
understanding the ascendancy of capitalism as a system of convic-
tion and ritual practice. Using the category of “religion” as an inter-
pretive wedge, Benjamin sought to cast new light on the burgeoning
economic system that would, in the next decades, radically
transform virtually every dimension of social life around the globe
in ways that he could only have partially glimpsed or anticipated. As
its title suggests, The Religious Dimensions of Advertising focuses
onone dimension of the story of religion and/as capitalism—adver-
tising, that quintessential creator and mobilizer of desire.
Approaching the question of advertising’s religious character
through a critical theological method, author Tricia Sheffield chal-
lenges readers to think anew about materiality, representation,
meaning-production, value, and the ritualized everyday. Classical
theories of religion meet cultural analysis and ethically inflected the-
ological method in this book. Neither “advertising” nor “religion”
will ever look quite the same after one has traveled through
Sheffield’s reading of their intersections. The Religious Dimensions
of Advertising makes a salutary contribution to the theoretical