Gold is the New Black: Race, the Academic Study of Religion, and The Golden Bough

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dc.contributor.author Zwissler, Laurel
dc.date.accessioned 2024-03-06T17:22:57Z
dc.date.available 2024-03-06T17:22:57Z
dc.date.issued 2023-02-12
dc.identifier.citation Zwissler, Laurel. "Gold is the New Black: Race, the Academic Study of Religion, and The Golden Bough." Paper presented at the Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer’s Golden Bough at 100, Melbourne, Australia, February 12, 2023. In New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library. Archives and Special Collections. Valdosta State University. Valdosta, GA. https://hdl.handle.net/10428/7068 en_US
dc.identifier.other 3240f93f-1f86-459e-4926-93edd1982ac6
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10428/7068
dc.identifier.uri https://youtu.be/UI5BAfOPB-4
dc.description 1 video file. ms150-40-024_zwissler-laurel_gold-new-black_2023-02-12.mp4 .mp4 623.45 MB 653,737,519 en_US
dc.description.abstract This project investigates Frazer’s influence within both the academic study of religion and new religious movements, such as contemporary Paganism and New Age, with focus on his deployment of religion to code cultural difference and race. My paper draws on interconnecting hierarchies of class, geography, culture, and religion to create mutually reinforcing signifiers of alien others. Difference in one category is understood as both cause and symptom of difference in the others. Thus religious difference, in and of itself, can serve as both sign of and cypher for racial difference, while also obfuscating racial anxieties under the cover of theological disagreement or cultural critique. As the academic study of religion continues to reckon with its entanglements with colonial white supremacy, and as new religious movements struggle with traditions of cultural appropriation, Frazer offers a stark example of a self-identified scientific and descriptive project that is clearly not. The point is not that Frazer is an aberration or a failure, but that he has done us the favor of throwing into relief racial dynamics across the academic study of religion more broadly. Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne; en_US
dc.format.mimetype video/mp4 en_US
dc.language.iso en_US en_US
dc.publisher New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries MS/150/40/;024
dc.rights Permission to post this digital asset provided by Laurel Zwissler to the Valdosta State University Archives & Special Collections to be part of the New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library. en_US
dc.subject Race--Religious aspects en_US
dc.subject Religion--Study and teaching en_US
dc.subject Frazer, James George, 1854-1941--Criticism and interpretation en_US
dc.subject Frazer, James George, 1854-1941. Golden bough en_US
dc.subject Conference papers and proceedings en_US
dc.subject Literary criticism en_US
dc.title Gold is the New Black: Race, the Academic Study of Religion, and The Golden Bough en_US
dc.type Video en_US


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