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This paper intends to analyze an episode in the life of Ignatian cult objects that had been used to house churches and schools of the order in the River Plate territory. Our protagonists will be images and objects of worship that once had a special significance due to their centrality in composing the liturgy and their proximity to the sacred. Despite their heterogeneity, all these objects, made of rich metals, had formed a River Plate Jesuitical material culture that had exalted the identity of the order. From a perspective focused on material culture, we will analyze how, once the process of managing temporalities began, these objects traveled an unsuspected path that altered their biographies, their symbolic meanings, and their valuations as sacred goods. From then on, desacralized and defunctionalized, these pieces went through processes of embargoes, commodification and disputes over their possession until their subsequent disappearance. Recomposing these paths will allow us to demonstrate the importance that these objects had in composing worship and liturgy followed by historical processes that led to one of the largest looting and diasporas of artistic heritage in the 18th century within the framework of its growing desecration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on pectoral crosses, which functioned as relic containers and amulets and were characterized by a blend of figural imagery and inscriptions. Arguably produced between the late eighth and the early ninth centuries, the geographical origins of the crosses are still contested between Byzantium and Rome, while other alternatives have yet to be fully considered. Some of these pectoral crosses bear inscriptions in Greek which have been interpreted as 'incorrect', but may reflect the conventions of spoken language in an evolving hellenophone Mediterranean. It is possible that their owners read the text during private prayer and meditation while holding the pendant. In particular, this paper considers a now lost enkolpion, the inscriptions of which, in Latin and Greek, reveal that it was intended for an audience familiar with both languages, at least in religious practices. One of its inscriptions quotes a well-known liturgical hymn sung at Mass before the celebration of the Eucharist. Thus, there is scope for a wider investigation into the function as well as cultural origins of pectoral crosses. The combination of figural illustrations and inscriptions and the variety of precious materials and relics on such pectoral crosses may have been intended to elicit a sort of 'tactile prayer', suggesting the use of synesthetic ways to apprehend the Incarnate Logos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El articulo discute el memorial de Bernardino de Cárdenas y la relación de su trabajo en la poesía. El articulo también discute sobre la evangelización con el enfoque de la destrucción de ídolos, la importancia del texto manuscrito en su trabajo literario con los ordenes literarios y la explotación de los indios por los españoles durante la colonización.

In pursuit of an alternative perspective on the so‐called 'statues controversy', this essay brings recent interpretations of the enduring 'power', 'gaze' and 'magic' of statues into alignment with critical histories of iconoclasm, sacred and secular, and New Materialist accounts of our multiple entanglements with the object histories of inherited monuments. Opening with a close reading of Percy Bysshe Shelley's renowned 1818 sonnet, 'Ozymandias', the essay applies the resultant theoretical synthesis to argue for the general restraint of popular iconoclastic and demolitionary acts and largely to caution against the mimetic violence of statue removal in favour of fresh, educative and iconotropic ways of 'making legible', and 're‐reading', statues, pedestals, inscriptions and their diverse contexts past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the institutional response to the Iconoclastic Fury and the iconoclasm of the early 1580s in the southern provinces of the Netherlands. Although the restoration of Catholicism is more often associated with the early seventeenth century, this article demonstrates that the reconstruction of churches and reestablishment of worship took place a generation earlier in the immediate aftermath of the religious violence. Furthermore this restoration was a priority for the government in the Netherlands, in particular for Margaret of Parma and her son Alexander Farnese, as they sought to regain control of the region and assert the authority of the crown. In particular, they encouraged the use of the ecclesiastical rites of consecration and reconciliation to symbolize the cleansing and purification of the religious landscape after the profane actions of the iconoclasts and adherents of the Reformed faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on recent advances in sensory anthropology to examine the significance of smell in late medieval and early Reformation ritual. It argues that late medieval ritual reflected and reinforced the power of smell to affect senses of boundary demarcation and transition between bodies, the world, and the divine. By removing incense from their rituals, early Reformers challenged this paradigm, effectively desacralizing the sense of smell. In many everyday contexts, its traditional associations persisted, but for early Reformers, smell no longer mediated between the human and the divine. The argument is developed by establishing how smells were embedded in the late medieval mundane and religious contexts, and then by demonstrating how Reformers rejected certain aspects of this paradigm, while retaining others. It demonstrates this in theory and practice. By adopting the sense of smell as a category of analysis, this article deepens the understanding of Reformation ritual as something that interacted with bodies in all modalities of perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of books including Nazia Kazi's Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics and Erik Love's Islamophobia and Racism in America is presented. Topics include Islam's response to Islamophobia; and Quranic story that explians that humans create false gods and observe constructed idols.

The Black Lives Matter movement has inspired the eradication of symbols and icons associated with oppressive systems around the world. Statues are being defaced or taken down and films regarded as racially insensitive, withdrawn from streaming services. This has sparked heated debates around the world that may be settled by combining some of the terms and ideas of media ecology and general semantics. Media ecology is instrumental for understanding the nature of these media, and general semantics for understanding people's responses to them. The concept of context runs through the debate and there are calls for contextualizing statues by exhibiting them in museums, and films, by adding prefaces to them. The author proposes a different way to contextualize them, which she believes has the potential of settling the current heated debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how images came to be regarded as having miraculous power in the centuries before Iconoclasm. It argues that by the fifth century, the miraculous power of relics was intimately connected with their materiality, specifically the belief that relics were imbued with power by contact with a saint. Given this paradigm, images suffered from a lack; if images are representations of saints and not matter touched by them, they should lack the power of relics. Over the course of the sixth and seventh centuries, this apparent lack was overcome by reconceiving images. Rather than simply identifying images with representation, they were understood as material objects in their own right. Understanding images as holy matter rather than representations alone helped usher images into practices of veneration and supplication in the sixth and seventh centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the heritage destruction undertaken by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. To date, their iconoclasm has been mostly characterised either as acts of wanton barbarism devoid of religious or political justification, or as a cynical performance designed as a mass media spectacle. Drawing on a systematic analysis of two key IS propaganda outlets – their on-line magazine,Dabiq, and the various slick films released byAl-Hayat– this article argues that the heritage destruction perpetrated by the IS are not only situated within a carefully articulated theological framework and key to the creation of a new and ideologically pure ‘Islamic State’, but that they are also constituted by several complex layers of religious and political iconoclasm. To demonstrate, this article documents the iconoclasm undertaken by the IS along two key axes:Symbolic Sectarianism(Shia and Sufi mosques and shrines); andPre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm(ancient polytheistic sites). Attacks on key sites within these categories, such as the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus or the Mosul Museum, not only adhere to their religious and political framework but also serve broader geo-political agendas and are attacked as proxy targets for their physical and ideological opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient Near Eastern heritage of understanding divine presence, it chooses to undermine that heritage to promote its particular agenda. This study clarifies the text by situating it more firmly in its ancient Near Eastern context and by addressing the biblical adaptations that emerge when we address each of the chapter's distinct voices. I also consider the importance of perspective--what each character sees and how that vision affects the character's viewpoint--and the importance of divine visibility both in Exodus 32 and in the larger non-Priestly narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a theological interpretation of Jeremiah 2:4-8 in light of the African context. This passage is typical of many in Jeremiah where the Lord laments Israel's turn away from the Lord to serve idols. Jeremiah offers a diagnosis of what went wrong with Israel, and I seek to understand how that diagnosis might provide a key for understanding Africa's own postcolonial situation. The article examines Israel and African Christianity in parallel: the historical context, the abandonment and banalization of God in contemporary times, and the resulting failed leadership that the prophetic imagination is called to address on the basis of Jeremiah's prophecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians often have difficulties understanding contrary figures who deviated from mainstream practices and beliefs. In the case of Claudius of Turin, who because of his iconoclasm has been pictured as a proto-Protestant, this image of a solitary was partly his own creation. Claudius liked to present himself as a truth-teller, defending God's honour and the unity of the church against all kinds of evils. This article uses the case of Claudius and the response of Dungal, one of his learned opponents, like him connected to the royal court, to reflect on the role of self-styling in early medieval debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the devotional practice of cradling small statues of saints in Mexico. Ritual cradling of saints' images is reportedly widespread in Mexico, Central America and Latino immigrant communities in the U.S. Also analyzed are cultural traditions in Mesoamerica, Mesoamerican and archeological and art historical record, humans interactions with materially embodied numina, and the use of devotional images by different religions.

The article presents the author's views on censorship as iconoclasm. He states that all acts f censorship are acts of iconoclasm which both offer clues to the use and function of images. The fear of art and love of art are examined as well as images' ability to arouse fear and love and the antipathy toward art. Also discussed are the social and political motivations of censorship and iconoclasm, the factors that drive the use of images by various cultures, and photos of world leaders that have been defaced including King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa.

How does one rightly name and discern imitatio Christi, imitatio crucis, and the relation between them? In one provocative attempt to answer this question, John Howard Yoder identifies Christ-imaging in vulnerable enemy love and rejects all other criteria. This essay reads the iconoclasm of Yoder's approach through poetry of the cross by William Mure and John Donne. It then proceeds to repair Yoder's Mure-like posture with Donne, as well as the writings of Margaret Ebner and Margery Kempe. These texts destabilise the dichotomies that sustain Yoder's iconoclasm and illustrate the inadequacy of a single criterion for imitatio Christi. Yet Kempe and Ebner's texts are also infected with violence such that they, too, need repair. Vulnerable enemy love thus returns as a negative condition for Christimaging, and Yoder's strong iconoclasm is moderated to a weaker iconoclasm that breaks images purporting to be Christ-like but are, in fact, violent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the traditional way of worshiping the God and also emphasizes on ways by which Christians grow in connection with God through idol of the holy figure. It mentions that icons can help appreciate the beauty of creation by providing a sight to Gods' divine mystery and also expand the knowledge of Christianity. It states that the physical presence of the idol enables ease in communication and also helps in understanding God's revelation entirely through visible world.

The article focuses on the topic of Iconoclasm, talking about Jews, who believed in one God who couldn't be materially represented and hence they defied idol worship which led to destruction of the images, and also discusses Christianity which unlike Judaism had adopted image worship.

The essay defends praying with images (icons) against those who claim this type of prayer is objectionable. The hermeneutical defence consists of three arguments. (a) First I observe that people relate to ordinary photos in ways that cannot be explained in terms of the image's sign-value (or similitude) alone. (b) Second, I develop an account of praying with images as a form of symbolic practice. (c) Finally, in order to bolster my account, I compare icons with a particular class of symbolic objects, viz. relics. The general idea I put forward is that icons have to be understood as expressions of the reality they represent, and not simply as accurate or inaccurate visual representations of that reality. Icons are not created by human hands; instead, the hand of the painter is the instrumental cause of God's self-expression, via the painter, on the canvas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the second voyage of Columbus, Ramón Pané arrived to the island of Hispaniola where he lived among the natives and wrote a treatise on their beliefs and rituals. His Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios, completed in 1498, is of great historical value and the author has been celebrated as the first American anthropologist and ethnologist. However, Pané has been insufficiently explained by the majority of scholars. The friar has not been recognized for what he most was, an extirpator of idolatry. This paper analyzes the characteristics of extirpator which the author shows in his Relación which, in turn, makes his work an innaugural sample of the anti-idolatry campaigns in the New World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the eighteenth century, Novohispanic painters produced some of the most innovative and visually complex images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. While they are based in part on European printed frontispieces of books about Christ's heart, the paintings are not mere copies or derivatives of European artworks. This article explores the reasons for the particular pictorial strategies of Novohispanic paintings of the Sacred Heart. I argue that the visual strategies employed by Novohispanic artists were intended to argue in support of the legitimacy and historicity of the cult of the Sacred Heart; the cult was under attack in the eighteenth century for, among other reasons, being too new and thus lacking historical roots, making it potentially heretical and apocryphal. Novohispanic depictions, like religious texts produced to defend the Sacred Heart, champion the cult, thereby attempting to shape perception through the power of the images. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses Augustine’s distinction between usus and fruitio—and O’Donovan’s critique of it—in order to consider the dangers of disordered love in the forms of idolatry and instrumentalisation in neighbourly relations on earth. Examining the christological heart of the pilgrimage image as articulated in De doctrina christiana addresses O’Donovan’s critique that the pilgrimage image instrumentalises one’s relationships to others in the progress of one’s own journey to God. In fact, this image presents a christological dialectic that establishes the continuity of earthly and eschatological neighbour-love and thus protects the neighbour from being made either idol or instrument by securing their right place in the order of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Theologa Orthodoxa is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The research done and called the Christian Iconography of the Gothic perimeter intends to present in a unified form the main changes that have been done at the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the Gothic style makes its majestic appearance in France. The evolution and development of large burg sites could have been done only around the great cathedrals that give impetus and define the whole society of the time, being composed of a hierarchy precisely split between monks, priests, vassals, artisans and the predominant people, delimited as a mass of the oppressed majority. Within this perimeter, Christian faith joins with local traditions creating works of art that characterizes regional and international productions. Sacred painting embraces monumental cathedrals apses generous spaces, for which it is often destined, and vaulted ceiling of the main nave. Subordinate to the architecture, as it will remain for a good long time, painting is required to appear on extensive areas of significant scenes from salvation history. The main topics are, of course, continued from Romanesque, but will become distinctive to Gothic style. For now, it can be certainly recognized the mode of representation defined in a precise circumstance as Italy, specifically Florence and Sienna. Creators will approach the Christian theme with great interest the defining the era, painting with feelings of reverence Mariological topics. The favorite theme of this period is The Virgin and Child, found at most creators. It is found both on tympanums of the sacred buildi3ngs and altars and sculptures dedicated to it. Alongside this, it should be noted that another iconographic topic of utmost importance is the worship of the deity; therefore it is of fundamental importance in the mural decorations, as well as in so often required altarpieces commissioned by major corporations and guilds of the time. Cimabue, Giotto and Masaccio will then turn to a system of painting that has its foundation in Byzantine art, but will move towards a discovery of the threedimensional reality, transposed on two-dimensional surfaces of churches and chapels. Duccio and Simone Martini will focus their attention towards a delicate painting influenced by the Idealism and Humanism of the early Renaissance. Humanism characterized the Gothic and realistic style is its counterpart. Artistic productions will highlight themselves by their desire to faithfully record the reality and the present world from micro-Cosmos to the universal macro-Cosmos. Religious painting narrates with great objectivity the Scripture and Saints Life, they become sources of influence of the great creators. Painters grouped into guilds are becoming sensitive to the demands of the time and new commisions that abound, showing their creativity and professionalism. Gothic painting shows a multitude of Christian themes, while remaining sensitive to the traditional old scenes and From the New Testament, to which should be added those of hagiographical origin. Using a style and a poignant representation of the reality, the Gothic painting gives creators freedom, leading them slowly towards a new sacral configuration of their art - Renaissance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Humania del Sur: Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Africanos y Asiáticos is the property of Humania del Sur. Estudios Latinoamericanos Africanos y Asiaticos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present article examines the aniconic polemics of the Hebrew Bible in an attempt to appreciate better their role in defining Israelite cultural boundaries and belief. The first part of the article deals with early sources in the aniconic tradition on which Deuteronomy 4 builds, particularly the idol prohibition of the Decalogue and the altar law of Exodus 20. The second part seeks to elucidate the creative appropriation of these traditions in Deuteronomy 4 and the historical circumstances that inspired this chapter's rhetoric. Drawing on the conclusions of the previous sections, particularly the strikingly divergent critiques of idolatry as motivated by different historical contexts, the final section will attempt to draw some broader conclusions regarding the role of polemical strategies in establishing a distinctive cultural discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author views on ambiguities of iconoclasm and focuses on the identification of iconoclasm and typology of iconoclasms. The author states about non-exhaustive taxonomic approach proposed by him on iconoclasm. He further discusses the way of loving and hating images and difference between iconoclasm and iconophilia.

Resilience, a concept derived from ecological theory, refers to the capacity of an entity or system to persist despite externally imposed shocks. This article uses resilience theory to examine how certain ideas persist when encountering antagonistic concepts that are backed by superior social and material forces. Such resilience is explored in the context of the Mangghuer people of the Sanchuan region of the Northeast Tibetan Plateau in China. Resilience is exemplified in the concept of divine power, the foundational concept in the Mangghuer version of Chinese popular religion, and its persistence in the face of Chinese state modernism. This research suggests that the content and ontological assumptions of concepts are important in determining the cultural outcomes of social interactions. Understanding cultural reproduction, resilience, and change therefore requires descriptive ethnographic understandings of concepts, not just of the power dynamics and social and material forces involved in their interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thracian goddess Bendis was worshipped in Classical Athens, and her cult became very popular in the 5th and 4th century BC. This article explores the available historiographical and archaeological record of an existing foreign cult within a Greek polis, and compares it to the data from the Thracian inland. As the literary sources limit themselves only to the Greek point of view, a combination of archaeological and epigraphical evidence has to be consulted in the case of Thrace. The aim of this paper is to determine and discuss the uniformity or potential discrepancies in the presentation of Bendis in the place of her origin, as well as in her new context. The mutual relations between Bendis and her Greek counterpart is not to be omitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extirpation of idolatry, preferential option by the franciscan order in the New World, must be viewed within the context of a century marked by intolerance, in which the franciscan order wasn't a foreigner. Doing a major tracking of the main franciscan chroniclers and confronting their writings with existing documents in the General Archive of the Indies, this paper aims to show a different way, the mentality of these religious mendicants engaged in a process of evangelization of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idol worship refers to psychological identification with and emotional attachment to an idol figure, who is most likely to be a celebrity for young people nowadays. Fragmentary findings in previous research on adolescent idol worship suggest that it may represent compensation for the worshipper's deficits, such as those in parental resources. To illuminate this compensation perspective, the study surveyed 401 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong. Its results show that parental absence and socio-economic status tended to affect the adolescents' idol worship desires. The idol worship included the adolescent's liking of pop idols, the age of the idols liked, and the wish to have romantic relationships with idols. They offer good support to the compensation perspective, implying that idol worship is symptomatic of the adolescent's deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Like his father before him, John Milton was a lifelong professional usurer. At a time when that profession was held in general contempt, this fact must have impinged upon his life in many and various ways. It seems clear, for example, that Milton's fraught first marriage was the fruit of usury. This essay traces the profound influence of the usury debate throughout Milton's work. While he sometimes echoes the popular denunciation of usurers as living from 'the sweat of other men,' Milton also defends usury in certain circumstances. He does not view usury as a narrowly economic phenomenon, but explores its impact on politics, aesthetics, theology and sexuality. Despite his complex and nuanced treatment of the subject, Milton ultimately portrays usury as Satanic. It involves the attribution of autonomous reproductive power to financial signs, and thus stands convicted of the same epistemological error as liturgical idolatry. Through close readings of several of Milton's poems, this essay demontrates that once the verb 'to use' is understood in its proper historical context, a whole new vista of interpretative possibilities opens for the attentive reader. (D. H.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the history of Buddhism in Tibet through an analysis of the appearance and social perception of the Jowo Śākyamuni Buddha statue in Lhasa, Tibet. The author reflects on the assimilation of Buddhism into Tibetan society, proper ritual action towards the Buddha, and how the decline of the theocratic state can be related to improper ritual action. Emphasis is given to the role of iconography and the statue's crown in historical debates over the assimilation of Buddhism during the Tibetan Empire, the rise of the Gelukpa hegemony, and the destruction of theocracy.

An anthropology of architecture has much to gain by exploring, in a range of cultural contexts, the tectonic dimension of power identified, but left largely undeveloped, by Foucault. When walls actively plunge into fields of social relations they include and exclude, divide and join, muffle, silence, conceal, contain, confine and visually impress, sometimes in radically new ways. These ideas are pursued in relation to a dramatic series of events here termed 'the Hawaiian iconoclasm'. A tectonic shift from temples and men's eating-houses to royal residences and family eating-houses is shown to have been integral to a transformation of chiefly power in 19th century Hawaii. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on art history topics which include devotion to miraculous images in Florence, Italy, the iconography of three 15th-century stucco relief panels from Florence's Palazzo Scala, and depictions of peasant practices in the art of Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The article examines sacred images depicting Christian miracles, or miraculous images, from Florence, Italy and its environs, and the cults attached to such images during the Renaissance. Therefore, the author is largely concerned with the veneration of highly sacred Christian images and icons. The construction of shrines for images deemed miraculous based on their sacredness within Florence is explained. Many of the miraculous images discusses contain depictions of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.

This paper examines a mission encounter in the Nenets reindeer herders' tundra. In post-Soviet arctic russia, Pentecostal and baptist missionaries of russian and Ukrainian origin have been fighting against idolatry and trying to persuade the Nenets to burn their sacred images or khekhe''. They claim that among the indigenous Siberians idolatry exists in its quintessential or prototypical form, as it is described in the bible. I shall suggest that this encounter takes place in a gap, in which the Nenets and Protestant have different understandings of language and materiality. Missionaries rely simultaneously on the 'modern' ideology of signification and the 'non-modern' magic of the material. They argue that idols, which are 'nothing' according to the scriptures, dangerously bind the 'pagans'' minds. For reindeer herders, for whom sacred items occupy an important place in the family wellbeing, the main issue is how to sever the link with the spirits without doing any damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper deals with the reception in the carolingian west of the byzantine Iconoclast Crisis. It considers the way both Christianities dealed with the problem that images presented to religious practices and the political consequences of iconic Worship. The paper also states that during the VIII and IX centuries the iconoclast crisis allowed the emergence of a self conscious Latin Christian tradition. Consequently it was the moment that showed the beginning of two differing ways of Christian piety and the alienation of one towards the other. Western Christianity focused its religion practice in Church building and the idea of Sacrality in the Eucharistic Rite. The Oriental Church, moreovers, centered its practices and Theology on Icon Worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the focus of previous literature on the economic and psychological aspects of the celebrity system unduly restricts our understanding of the social phenomenon of celebrity. Celebrities are commodities to be sure, but previous scholars have largely failed to explore the ways in which celebrities are also symbols. Celebrities are a locus of meaning-making in the contemporary USA. Using the case of Jamie Lynn Spears’s 2007—8 pregnancy, I demonstrate that, as a celebrity icon, her underage pregnancy raises questions and concerns about more than a single celebrity’s experience as a soon-to-be teenage mother. Her pregnancy imports a larger public discussion and debate about teen sex and how to avoid teen pregnancy. Through this study, I show that celebrities are symbols by which we narrate, negotiate, and interpret our collective experience, and establish moral boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a non-reductive approach to celebrity, treating it as an iconic form of collective representation central to the meaningful construction of contemporary society. Like other compelling material symbols, the celebrity-icon is structured by the interplay of surface and depth. The surface is an aesthetic structure whose sensuous qualities command attention and compel attachment; the depth projects the sacred and profane binaries that structure meaning even in postmodern societies. While celebrity worship displays elements of totemism, it also reflects the eschatological hopes for salvation that mark post-Axial Age religion. The attacks on celebrity culture that inform critical public and intellectual thinking resemble iconoclastic criticisms of idol worship more than they do empirical social scientific study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]