Kathryn Lofton: "Spiritual Capitalism: The Prosperity Gospel of Oprah Winfrey"

Abstract:

After ten years of research, Kathryn Lofton published Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, a study that uses the works of Oprah Winfrey to define the history and structure of religion in modern America.  The world of Oprah Winfrey is many things; it is entertaining, philanthropy, therapeutic, and corporate.  But Lofton argues the right summary for this world—for Oprah's world—is to describe it as religious. This is what religion becomes when it is without bounds, without permanent structure, and without imprinted creed. Oprah's world offers religion for an age in which markets make custom, consumption is the universal aspect, and celebrities are ostensible gods. In this talk, Lofton will focus in particular on the prescribed and created neoliberal economies of contemporary American religion.

Bio:

Kathryn Lofton is the Sarai Ribicoff Associate Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at Yale University, an Editor-at-Large for The Immanent Frame, and co-curator (with John Lardas Modern) of Frequencies, an online genealogy of religion. A specialist in nineteenth and twentieth-century U.S. religions, she has written on the histories of evangelicalism, consumerism, African American religion, and the academic study of religion. Her first book, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, was published by the University of California Press in 2011. She is currently working on several projects, including a study of sexuality and religion; an analysis of parenting practices in twentieth-century America; and a religious history of Bob Dylan.