Comics, Culture, and Religion

Kees de Groot is the KSGV Professor of Sociology of Worldviews and Public Mental Health at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. His research is on religion in liquid modernity and has covered Catholicism, spiritual care, religion in the public domain, theater, events, and Tintin. His latest monograph in the English language is The Liquidation of the Church (2018).

• Introduction: Comics and Religion in Liquid Modernity, Kees de Groot (Tilburg University, Netherlands)Part I: Comics in Religion1. From Subordinates to Superheroes? Comics in Christian Magazines for Children and Youth in Norway, Irene Trysnes (University of Agder, Norway)2. Cancelling the Second Coming: Manufactured Christian Outrage Online, Evelina Lundmark (Uppsala University, Sweden)3. The Reception of Comics on Zoroastrianism, Paulina Niechcial (Jagiellonian University, Poland)Part II: Religion in comics4. Drawn into Krishna: Autobiography and Lived Religion in the Comics of Kaisa and Christoffer Leka, Andreas Häger and Ralf Kauranen (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)5. What Would Preacher Do? Tactics of Blasphemy in the Strategies of Satire and Parody, Michael J. Prince (University of Agder, Noway)6. Islam and Anxieties of Liberalism in Craig Thompson’s Habibi, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri (Reed College, USA)Part III: Comics as Religion?7. Implicit Religion and Trauma Narratives in Maus and Watchmen, Ilaria Biano (Istituto Italiano, Italy)8. Manga Pilgrimages: Visualizing the Sacred / Sacralizing the Visual in Japanese Junrei, Mark MacWilliams (St. Lawrence University, USA)9. Comics and Meaning Making: Adult Comic Book Readers on What, Why and How They Read, Sofia Sjö (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)Part IV: Learning From Comics9. The Magic of the Multiverse. Easter Eggs, Superhuman Beings and Metamodernism in Marvel’s Story Worlds, Sissel Undheim (University of Bergen, Norway)10. Comics and Religious Studies: Amar Chitra Katha as an Educational Comic Series, Line Reichelt Føreland (University of Agder, Norway)11. A Contract with God or a Social Contract? Christophe Monnot (University of Strasbourg, France)Conclusion: Comics as a Way of Doing, Encountering, and Making Religion, Kees de Groot (Tilburg University, Netherlands)BibliographyIndex

Kees de Groot’s entertaining edited volume explores the complex interplay between religion as portrayed in comics and comics as received and used by religious communities. Seeking to understand the worlds created by comics as potentially religious or spiritual, and as having the capacity to embody ultimate concerns for some readers is an emergent subfield in religious studies, one that reveals the extent to which popular cultural art forms dominate late modernity.