The Centre for Film, Media, Discourse and Culture at the University of Wolverhampton warmly invites you to the first of its New Year Lecture/Seminar series
14.15-16.30 Wednesday 19th February 2020
**MC438** Millennium City Building (PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE)
University of Wolverhampton
Dr Stephen Jacobs (University of Wolverhampton) The Ritual Gaze: Mediating a Hindu Pilgrimage in the Digital Age
In his important book Rite Out of Place: Ritual Media and the Arts (2006), Ronald M. Grimes suggests a variety of ways that media and ritual intersect. For instance, Grimes suggests that ritual events are frequently extended by the media. A good example of this would be the televising of spectacular ritual events such as the Kumbha Melā. However, there is a dearth of research on the ways that mobile digital devices and social media are incorporated into ritual practice. This paper focuses on the pilgrimage held in the Hindu month of Śravan. Every year, during this month, Rishikesh is inundated with pilgrims flocking to the Śiva temple in the hills above this small pilgrimage town in northern India. This pilgrimage has become increasingly popular over the last few years, with over 6 million pilgrims passing through Rishikesh during Śravan in 2018. Social media, taking selfies and digital devices have become an integral part of this pilgrimage experience. Drawing on ethnographic field work, and theories of the tourist gaze and media rituals, I argue in this paper that the proliferation of digital media has not only served to popularise this pilgrimage but is also integral to the ritual performance.
Dr Vivian Asimos (University of Durham) Tulpas and Found Images: the performance of belief online
The primary stage for contemporary horror storytelling online, the subreddit No Sleep, declares the most important rule for users: everything is true here, even if it isn’t. This rule dictates the way users typically interact both on the subreddit and elsewhere while writing and reading horror stories online. Users typically post “in character”, or write as if the narrative is a true story. This impacts not only the comments, but also the story itself. This is not unique to No Sleep. Users engage with a playful performance of belief – ludically immersing themselves in ontological realities beyond their own. Using fieldwork conducted both at No Sleep as well as other locations for horror stories online, this paper seeks to demonstrate the playful performances of belief as something much greater than “simple play”, but a demonstration of the sliding scale possible in belief. It also exhibits the users’ abilities to thoughtfully participate in supernatural beliefs otherwise inaccessible to them through language similar to that found in supernatural urban legends. Although engaging in similar concepts and language, the interactivity found in these areas of horror storytelling is unique to the virtual environment, and therefore demonstrates both new forms of engagement with older concepts and ontological processes of belief.
About the Speakers:
Dr Stephen Jacobs is a senior lecturer in Media, Religion and Culture. His academic background is in Indian traditions and culture in the contemporary global context. His research is primarily ethnographic. He has an interest in, and has published on, the intersections between religion, the media and popular culture. His latest publication is The Art of Living Foundation: Spirituality and Wellbeing in the Global Context. The Art of Living (AOL) is a global Hindu derived meditation movement and the research involved extensive ethnographic fieldwork in India, Germany and the UK. He is currently doing an ethnographic study of the green movement in the UK.
Dr Vivian Asimos received her doctorate in virtual storytelling, mythology and religion from Durham University. She is the co-editor of the Bloomsbury Reader in the Study of Myth, and currently works at Durham University.
All welcome - please contact Fran Pheasant-Kelly at [log in to unmask] to reserve a place or for any queries
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