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Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages

Toy, J Caroline
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4662-4460
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587605749537652

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
Fan communities, once considered marginal, have become an object of study across many academic disciplines. While considerable energy has been devoted to studying fans' creative works, little work has attended to religiosity in fandom, beyond superficial comparisons of fan behaviors to religious ones. As yet, no one has produced an analysis of this relationship addressing the complexity of a subculture that behaves religiously (by any academic understanding) but does not usually identify itself as religious. This dissertation examines the religious nature of fan practices as seen in pilgrimages related to the mega- franchises Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Sherlock. The aim is not merely to demonstrate that these pilgrimages are religious, but also to explicate how religiosity works in such non-traditional contexts--that is, through pilgrimages in commercial and ordinary spaces that make no claim to transcendent authority. This analysis questions assumptions about what makes a shrine a shrine, a community religious, or a narrative or ritual an expression of values and belief. This research examines seven fan pilgrimage sites using ethnographic data, including participant observation, surveys, and interviews. Sites include the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, FL; the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter; Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station in London, UK; filming locations and sites that inspired the Harry Potter movies in Oxford, UK; the Doctor Who Experience, Cardiff, UK; Ianto's Shrine, Cardiff, UK; and the memorial to Sherlock Holmes at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, UK. Analysis focuses on three themes: creation of sacred space, imagined community, and emergences of belief in ritual and other actions common to fan pilgrimage and traditional religious pilgrimage. Drawing on studies of religion and popular culture, folk belief, fan culture, and narrative theory, this interdisciplinary investigation of fan pilgrimages advances a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between fiction, fandom, and religiosity. I demonstrate that fans' performances of religious repertoires in pilgrimage are not a simulacrum of religion, but do genuine religious work, even as they consciously and playfully defy traditional definitions of religion. This project invites further inquiry into what it means to act religiously outside historical religious traditions in a media-saturated world.
Hugh B. Urban (Advisor)
Katherine Borland (Committee Member)
Merrill Kaplan (Committee Member)
Isaac Weiner (Committee Member)
Ross P. Garner (Committee Member)
451 p.
Folklore; Mass Media; Religion
fan culture; fan studies; popular culture; fiction-based religion; invented religion; Doctor Who fans; Sherlock Holmes fans; Harry Potter fans; pilgrimage; secular pilgrimage

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Toy, J. C. (2020). Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587605749537652

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Toy, J Caroline. Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587605749537652.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Toy, J Caroline. "Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587605749537652

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
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