Arts One

Public libraries in Canada claim to do much more than circulate books. Through their mission statements, public libraries across the country position themselves as an important part of a democratic society because they provide all citizens with access to information. John Buschman connects this positioning to Jürgen Habermas, arguing that “libraries are the concrete place of the democratic public sphere” (47) because they provide both “equality of opportunity and access and the development of critical literacy in a democracy” (177). Buschman goes on to argue that constant threat of budget cuts has compromised this positioning, propelling libraries into a customer oriented librarianship which emphasizes customer satisfaction and quantifiable measures of success. Instead of public spheres filled with democratic dialogue libraries become sites of consumption.

In this paper, I will examine how marketing campaigns of public libraries in Canada reflect this consumer oriented view of libraries. I will focus specifically on the Calgary Public Library’s award winning “Everything You’re Into” campaign. I will argue that this campaign not only promotes programs and materials, but also presents the library as a place to consume materials instead of a place for the discourse that constitutes the public sphere of Habermas.

In an article for the Boston Review, Brooklyn novelist Darcey Steinke writes that “during the writing of Milk [she] began to sense that grace flows through the world evenly... that sex, even at its most sordid, is soaked through with both humanity and divinity.” Milk clearly reflects that sense. Mary, the protagonist, searches for the physical touch of God through a mixture of masturbation and prayer, breastfeeding her newborn baby, and sexual encounters with a former monk. Using Georges Bataille’s theories of eroticism, and Julia Kristeva’s writings on breast feeding, I argue that Milk attempts to overcome the sexually repressive tendencies of Christian theology to merge sexual and religious desire. While this combination of desires does not result in any sort of lasting fulfilment, it sanctions any attempt Mary makes to find temporary satisfaction.

Near the middle of James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Florence expresses her doubt about the transformative effects of a religious conversion, especially when it comes to her brother Gabriel. To Florence, he is the same man he was before his conversion experience: selfish, lustful, and oppressive, “no better than a murderer” (Baldwin 84). Critics have generally agreed with Florence’s judgment of Gabriel’s conversion. Some call it “fake” (Harris 36) and suggest he uses it as a ploy to manipulate other characters (May, Lundén). Even those who present Gabriel’s inability to change in a more sympathetic light allow little room for the possibility that his conversion is genuine and sincere (Powers, Robinson).

Gabriel’s failure, however, is not due to his lack of sincerity, but rather the inefficacy of the conversion process itself. This becomes clear when Gabriel’s conversion is set beside the model of conversions William James lays out in The Varieties of Religious Experience. Although James’ writing has been critiqued for its Protestant bias (Rorty, Proudfoot), it offers an idealistic account of the practical results of a conversion experience. Following James’ model, Gabriel gravitates toward a belief system that offers him an escape from despair, and he experiences a euphoric joy upon his escape. Instead of maintaining his joy, and performing acts that James deems helpful for the community, Gabriel slips back into despair and only after that becomes selfish and destructive. Gabriel’s conversion, then, serves not only as a critique of the practical benefits of conversion, it is also an ominous prediction of what lies ahead for John, the protagonist of Go Tell It on the Mountain.

Scholars who theorize postsecular literature and postmodern religion in literature more broadly do not often include Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain in their discussion. Instead, they tend to focus on fiction in which a non-religious character turns toward a deliberately vague understanding of the spiritual and supernatural. Despite this focus, I want to argue that Covington’s book belongs in this conversation for two reasons. First, because the identity that Covington establishes for himself matches the one that scholars like McClure and Amy Hungerford examine in American fiction: he affirms the existence of the spiritual and supernatural without defining it in a clear theological manner. Second, because it illustrates a different way of arriving at this postsecular identity. Instead of moving away from the secular toward the religious, Covington moves toward the secular away from the religious (or, to use Hungerford’s terms, from doctrinal faith to non-doctrinal faith); Salvation on Sand Mountain is a deconversion narrative in which Covington defines himself against the snake handlers rather than against a “secular” world. Yet, the dichotomy that Covington creates between himself and the snake handlers goes beyond differences in religious practices and beliefs to incorporate differences that perpetuate stereotypes of Appalachian people. As a result, including the book in a discussion about postsecular literature not only opens up the discussion to include deconversion narratives, it also points to new questions about postsecular literature. Namely, what impact does telling the story of moving from doctrinal religion to non-doctrinal religion have on the representation of the religious communities left behind?

In a 2013 interview with Esquire magazine, actress and glamour model Megan Fox spoke openly, more so than ever before, about her religious beliefs and practices. In the article, she discusses her experience of speaking in tongues as a teenager in a Pentecostal church, and her lingering attachment to the practice. The reaction to the revelation was swift in other news media. “Megan Fox May Be Hot, But She Is Also Really Crazy” read a headline from the CBS Detroit website, reducing Fox to her role as a sexual object and the “otherness” of her religious practices. Although other headlines were a little more muted, the sentiment was similar. What is interesting is the way the coverage is different from that of Katy Perry, also a former Pentecostal. While Perry is careful not to critique her Pentecostal upbringing too heavily, or her parents who still act as Pentecostal ministers, she is also reluctant to talk about her current beliefs. Both stars seem to reflect what John McClure calls “postsecular” religious sensibility in their discussion of religion, in that they both emphasize belief over the content of that belief, and remain open to a variety of different, even conflicting, beliefs. Yet the subtle differences in what they say, and the public reaction to what they say reveals a line that Fox crosses, a line that reinforces a Liberal Protestant theology, in which what Perry says is acceptable, and what Fox says is not acceptable. Using recent work by Matt Hedstrom and Robert Orsi on Liberal Protestantism in the United States, this paper will argue that the contrast in media portrayals of Katy Perry and Megan Fox in terms of their religious beliefs helps to reveal the pervasiveness of Liberal Protestant bias in a supposedly “secular” media, and the limits of Liberal Protestant pluralism in the United States.

John Barbour has argued that deconversion narratives “rarely entail [a] total reversal;” there are always some elements of the rejected religion which the narratives reinterpret or reappropriate. This is certainly true for Pentecostal deconversion narratives written in the past thirty years. These narratives tend to reject Pentecostalism for its conservative theology, and associated treatment of sexuality, gender, and political affiliation. In so doing, the narratives appeal to what Robert Orsi, David Hollinger, and Matt Hedstrom identify as a Liberal Protestant sensibility, dominant in the United States. None-the-less, the narratives attempt to redeem certain aspects of Pentecostalism, most often ecstatic religious experiences like glossolalia (speaking in tongues), by describing them in favourable terms, Liberal Protestant terms. Using Kim Barnes as a case study, this paper seeks to examine the ways these narratives accomplish this reinterpretation. In her two memoirs In the Wilderness and Hungry for the World she cautiously celebrates particular aspects of ecstatic experiences and how they prepared her for her life of writing, while rejecting the Pentecostal context in which she had these experiences. This celebration is even more explicit in her essay “Prayer, Piety, Passion, and Prose.” In all three cases, she assigns new meaning to these experiences, meaning which is incompatible with Pentecostal theology and more palatable to an audience with Liberal Protestant sensibilities.

David Hollinger has recently argued that, although mainline liberal Protestants “lost American Protestantism” due to declining membership, they “won the United States.” He is among a group of scholars who suggest that American religious pluralism, individualism, and even multicultural tolerance have liberal Protestant roots. This paper takes a more critical approach by examining the relationship between the liberal Protestant legacy and a neoliberal understanding of religion, an understanding which permeates Democratic politics and the book publishing industry.

Critics often praise southern novelist Lee Smith for her nuanced portrayal of the Appalachian people. Rodger Cunningham even uses her novel Oral History as an example of how fiction is able to challenge colonialist tendencies of other American portrayals of Appalachia. The celebration of her work extends to her portrayal of Appalachian Pentecostalism, especially in her novel Saving Grace. This novel is the fictional deconversion narrative of Grace, the daughter of a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher. While Grace leaves Pentecostalism, she regains a vague kind of spirituality by the end of the novel. The novel follows many of the formal patterns of deconversion narratives, setting up a dichotomy between the old Pentecostalim and the new spirituality. This new spirituality downplays the doctrinal content of belief in favour of an open, undefined spiritual practice. As a result, the novel could easily find a home within what John McClure calls “postsecular literature” which promotes “dramatically ‘weakened’ religiosity with secular, progressive values and projects” (3); the novel is postsecular because it favours what Amy Hungerford calls “belief without content” where the presence of belief in the spiritual is much more important than the doctrinal specifics of that belief (xiii).

A closer examination of Saving Grace, and Smith’s other portrayals of Pentecostalism, undermines critics’ claim that Smith’s portrayal of Appalachian religion is nuanced. Set alongside paratextual sources such as interviews and reading guides prepared by the author, a disturbing tendency to marginalize this small group of Pentecostals begins to emerge. This paper examines the ways that Smith employs stereotypes of Appalachian Pentecostals in order to present a foil to the postsecular spirituality she favours. Ultimately, this paper argues that Smith participates in the colonialist tendencies of work portraying Appalachia rather than challenging those tendencies.

This paper will argue that evangelical deconversion narratives published since 1990 use prison imagery to constitute a neoliberal approach to the self, and by extension religion and spirituality, as “freedom.” This is an extremely limited version of “freedom” as numerous critics of neoliberalism have noted. Neoliberal concepts of the self require individuals to frame their religious beliefs and practices according to a cost/benefit model, which will ultimately lead to an appreciation of emotional health and self-value. By framing a conservative religious past as prison, these narratives help to obscure the ideological implications of a neoliberal approach to self and religion.

The spiritualties that the deconversion narratives in this dissertation study embrace, whether they be liberal or neoliberal, are heirs of liberal Protestantism. Recent scholarship on liberal Protestantism and its apparent demise in the 1960s suggests that traces of liberal Protestant ideas about religion, broader values, and pluralism are present in dominant cultural approaches to religion in the United States. Some even point to the kind of religion that Oprah promotes as one of the heirs to liberal Protestant ideas and values. Since Oprah’s spirituality is quintessentially neoliberal, this creates an interesting genealogy for neoliberal spirituality. In Chapter One, then, I argue that neoliberal spirituality builds upon and accentuates particular aspects of liberal Protestantism and liberal spirituality. This link presents more than just a genealogy. It also helps to highlight limitations with the kind of pluralism that liberal Protestantism, liberal spirituality, and neoliberal spirituality promotelimitations that ultimately undermine the individualism and autonomy it celebrates.

Many deconversion narratives in this dissertation employ a coming-of-age structure. Not only does this narrative structure tap into an audience that is familiar with coming-of-age memoirs and novels, it also presents an opportunity to privilege one ideology or religion over another in a subtle way; in this case, neoliberal spirituality over Pentecostalism. While these coming-of-age narratives represent Pentecostalism as having some positive attributes, the attributes are underdeveloped. By contrast, liberal and neoliberal spirituality fosters these supposedly positive attributes and helps them develop. As a result, Pentecostalism is represented as antiquated and stifling, while neoliberal spirituality is portrayed as modern and liberating. In Chapter Two, I explore this narrative structure using Kim Barnes’s two memoirs In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in an Unknown Country and Hungry for the World. Barnes has received some recognition for her work, earning a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for In the Wilderness. The success of her memoirs helped her to secure a tenured teaching position at the University of Idaho. Beyond this recognition, however, Barnes provides interesting examples for study because of how sympathetically she portrays her Pentecostal parents. Perhaps more than any other author referenced in this study, Barnes makes great efforts to bridge the rifts between herself and her neoliberal spirituality that arise after she leaves home and Pentecostalism behind. Her efforts, however, come off flat and condescending next to the critique of Pentecostalism contained in the memoirs.

Deconversion narratives, including those that double as coming-of-age stories, extend beyond literary fiction and memoirs. They often appear in various popular culture forms, including interviews with celebrities. Chapter Three analyzes the ways in which two contemporary celebrities deploy their deconversion narrative in promotional interviews to gain and maintain access to different kinds of audiences. Pop singer Katy Perry uses a coming-of-age deconversion narrative that presents her emergence from the confines of Pentecostalism as a neoliberal triumph over difficulties and traumas to achieve a successful life. Movie star Megan Fox, however, presents a deconversion narrative that has a muddled timeline and is steeped in a sensual nostalgia. In this chapter, I argue that both approaches are calculated moves to appeal to different audiences. Both cases, however, draw on the caricatures of Pentecostals and privilege neoliberal spirituality.

While Pentecostal stereotypes tend to be repeated regardless of the different cultural contexts in which Pentecostals live, the context can sometimes add an extra layer of significance to those stereotypes. This is particularly true for Appalachian Pentecostals. This group of Pentecostals is unique because they practice snake handling and, as a result, they have received a disproportionate amount of coverage in popular media as well as in scholarly studies. Chapter Four introduces the Appalachian community and examines a deconversion narrative that may seem out of place with the others in this dissertation. Not only is Dennis Covington the only male author/storyteller in this study, but calling his deconversion narrative in Salvation on Sand Mountain a coming-of-age story is also a stretch. Covington enters the community as a reporter and slowly, over the next few years, becomes deeply involved in their rituals. He even contemplates joining them permanently. Ultimately, however, he decides to leave the community. Some scholars have critiqued the way Covington depicts his departure, but in this chapter I argue that the depiction of his departure is not the only problematic portrayal in his memoir. Instead, I posit that Covington sets up a dichotomy throughout the memoir, a dichotomy that privileges the neoliberal spirituality he adopts at the end over the Pentecostalism he dabbles in throughout the narrative.

While scholars critique Covington for his portrayals of Appalachian Pentecostals, they celebrate novelist Lee Smith. In Chapter Five, I argue that this celebration is unwarranted, and instead I suggest that, in her fiction, Smith participates in the same tradition of condescending portrayal as Covington. Ultimately, her fiction works to critique Pentecostalism while celebrating neoliberal spirituality. Her promotional interviews enhance this privileging. In them, she downplays the nuance in the fiction itself and positions herself alongside the readers as a neoliberal observer of backwards, constraining, and ultimately anachronistic religious practices.

The tendency of deconversion narratives in this study to draw on stereotypes and other Pentecostals does not fully realize the potential of deconversion narratives. There is an opportunity to create and explore alternative spiritualties that embrace the supernatural and ecstatic religious experiences while representing a loss of faith without stereotyping and othering Pentecostals. This dissertation’s conclusion sets out to recover this possibility, which is left unrealized in all of the narratives in this study, while at the same time suggesting ways to expand this scholarship. In the end, I turn to articles by Michelle Syba as an example of a deconversion narrative that does not resort to stereotypes and othering. Instead, it depicts Pentecostals with a sensitive respect. Even though Syba does not explore or experiment with the spiritual or supernatural in her new, more secular worldview, her narrative disrupts Pentecostal stereotypes rather than support them.