To browse Academia. Studies of religion and fandom have generally considered sincere devotion a fundamental point of contact between the two cultural phenomena, an assumption not reflected in fan studies. This paper challenges recent arguments that the Church of the SubGenius COSG is a 'real' religious organization, in that it purportedly provides a path to spiritual enlightenment. Besides downplaying the COSG's comedic aspects, these essentialist approaches have largely ignored its historical development within the American 'alternative' underground of the s and earlys.
Drawing on interviews and the analysis of participatory media, this paper examines the COSG alongside Zontar, a stridently political zine named in honour of a B-movie monster that its founders claimed to worship. It is demonstrated that these interrelated, intentionally 'fake' religions emerged in the context of a turbulent American culture war, and confronted a conservative evangelicalism perceived to be a political threat.
While the founders of the COSG and Zontar accordingly attacked and satirised politically engaged television preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, their approaches to certain less explicitly political televangelists can be considered examples of ironic fandom, shot through with flashes of genuine admiration. In all of these activities, the founders of these fake faiths participated in a cultural discussion about authentic Christianity in America -playful religious work more indicative of the COSG's cultural significance than its alleged status as an 'authentic' religion.
Carole M. When we, Carole Cusack and Venetia Robertson, were invited by John and McFarland to contribute to the volume and complete the project as the editors we were excited to see the breadth and depth of the contributions. The essays that have been selected for this volume represent innovative intellectual engagements with the relationship of religion to fandom. A considerable portion of the authors are early career researchers and, with the field being emergent and quickly evolving, the studies here are appositely fresh.
While some of the fandoms and their media sources that feature in these pages have been subject to much academic assessment over the years, the following essays offers an insightful take on what these cultures can tell us about spirituality in the contemporary world. Studies of the relationship between religion and popular culture are not new, and the past decade has seen a dramatic burgeoning of interest in this relationship.
