Practical Spiritualities in a Media Age

Book excerpt: We live in a media age where technologies become the sites and sources of our practices and beliefs, including those deeper values that guide decisions about how we should live. Practical Spiritualities in a Media Age explores how and why media become the site and source of spiritual expressions that address the mundane or everydayness of our lives. Including international case studies and essays from leading scholars such as Stewart Hoover and Graham Harvey, the book examines the ways and the places in which people have employed media and information technologies to weave spiritual meaning throughout the demands and pastimes of their lives. Topics range from food and sex to spiritual tourism. In doing so, the volume takes up a call from Paul Heelas' seminal work, Spiritualities of Life, to provide more examples, more richness and more depth to the variety of spiritual practices that exist in late modernity. Providing critical, scholarly explorations of the complexities and contradictions of late-modern spiritual practices, Practical Spiritualities in a Media Age is a must-read for anyone working in the intersection of media, religion or spirituality, and culture.