Religion, the sacred and changing cultures of everyday life

This research network emerged out of a growing body of academic research that has been undertaken in recent years on the significance of media and cultures of everyday life for contemporary forms of religion. In the post-War period, there have been significant changes in the structures and practices of everyday life . These have ranged from new patterns of consumption and leisure to the emergence of new forms of media, and have been bound up with wider economic, social and cultural transformations. Running between March 2009 and September 2010, the aim of this project was to bring together leading scholars from Britain, North America and Europe, with interests in the significance of these changing cultures of everyday life for contemporary religion. Funded by a research network grant awarded by the AHRC, this project focused around a series of five in-depth seminars. There were organised around the following themes:

• (seminar 1): religion, spirituality and consumer culture
• (seminar 2): media and the transformation of religion
• (seminar 3): religion and cultural consumption in everyday life
• (seminar 4): the sacred senses: religious forms of visual, media and auditory culture
• (seminar 5): media, ethics and culture

Papers presented at these seminars, along with other material, are due to be published as a collection of key readings on religion, media and culture by Routledge in 2011.