The Religious Dimensions of Advertising

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 1-9

3. Totemic Desires

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 11-31

4. Worshiping a Totem: Emile Durkheim’s Theories of Religion

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 33-51

5. Locating Religious Dimensions in the History of Advertising

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 53-99

6. The Religious Dimensions of Advertising in the Culture of Consumer Capitalism

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 101-131

7. Refusing to be an Advertisement: Enacting Disruptive Performative Identities against the Religious Dimensions of Advertising

   • Tricia Sheffield

   Pages 133-152

8. Back Matter

   Pages 153-190

   PDF

This groundbreaking work explores media scholar Sut Jhally's thesis that advertising functions as a religion in late capitalism and relates this to critical theological studies. Sheffield argues that advertising is not itself a religion, but that it contains religious dimensions - analogous to Durkheim's description of objects as totems.

• Advertising
• capitalism
• culture
• god
• identity
• religion
• society
• religion and society

"Sheffield's book is meticulously researched and provides an excellent bibliography and overview of the work of key scholars of theology, communication, sociology, and cultural history." - Journal of Media and Religion"The Religious Dimension of Advertising is much more than an academic critique. Drawing on anthropology, religious studies, and feminist theory, Tricia Sheffield demonstrates how advertising mediates matters of "ultimate concern" in U.S. society. And, Sheffield also suggests ways that critical consumption can disrupt the panoptic gaze through which advertising would have us develop our sense of self and our relations to others. She, thus, opens the door to means of fulfilling needs and desires that contribute not to hierarchy but to justice." - Janet R. Jakobsen, Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women"Sheffield's sparkling interdisciplinary analysis blends historical, theological, and other cultural approaches to show how advertising works. Ads, she claims, enchant us into a sense of belonging by creating totemic clans of consumption around certain products. Sheffield pushes beyond facile claims that advertising is a religion by providing a nuanced analysis of how advertising has taken on some of the functions of religion in the modern world. This smart work provides historical and theoretical tools to understand advertising and the intellectual energies to resist its dispiriting effects." - Jesse Terry Todd, Associate Professor of American ReligiousStudies, Drew University

TRICIA SHEFFIELD has a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University, USA. She has taught religion and feminist theory at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University, at Hofstra University, and at Queens College (CUNY). She is a Lilly Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies for the academic year, 2006-2007, at Austin College, Texas, USA.

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