Edited by Jodi Eichler-Levine
Disney and Religion
Disney and Religion: A Small Spiritual World, After All is the first edited volume to examine Disney’s theme parks and films using the tools of religious studies. From Hong Kong Disneyland to Walt Disney’s birthplace in Chicago, the scholars in this volume journey across the globe drawing insight from spiritual figures as diverse as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Augustine of Hippo. This book explores questions of devotion, ritual, pilgrimage, and meaning-making at the border where lived religion meets consumer culture.
Table of Contents
Introduction Jodi Eichler-Levine
Part 1: The Happiest Cruise that Ever Sailed: Travel and Traditions
- 1. Temples, Towers, and Tequila: Consuming Religion at World Showcase
Joshua T. Parks
2. Is Hony Kong Disney a Religion?
Kathryn Gin Lum
Part 2: Magic Mirror: Play, Mythmaking, and Homes‘
3. The Play’s the Thing: Childhood and Play as Spiritual Practice in Bluey
Laura Yares
4. The Laughing Place: Race and American Mythmaking in Disney’s Bayou Country
Che Pieper
5. Welcome “Home”: The Role of Nostalgia and the Complexities of the Local in the Disney Vacation Club
Adrienne Krone
Part 3: Now Make a Wish, and Take a Bite: Ritual Studies
6. “If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It”: Disney Castle Fireworks and American New Thought (Anew)
Jill Peterfeso
7. Animism in Disney Theme Parks
Jennifer E. Porter
8. Disney Fan Conventions and the Ritual Remaking of Community
Jodi Eichler-Levine
Part 4: To All Our Company: Fandom and Communitas
9. How Disney Roleplay Groups Imagined Other Worlds (and Ours)
Karis Haewon Ryu
10. Happily Ever Afterlife: Walt Disney as the Ultimate High Priest in His Creative “Promised Land”
Christopher W. Tremblay