Exploring the Spiritual in Popular Music: Beatified Beats (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music)

This book highlights how the diverse nature of spiritual practices are experienced and manifest through the medium of popular music. At first glance, chapters on Krishnacore, the Rave Church phenomenon and post-punk repertoire of Psychic TV may appear to have little in common; however, this book draws attention to some of the similarities of the nuances of spiritual expression that underpin the lived experience of popular music. As an interdisciplinary volume, the extensive introduction unpacks and clarifies terminology relating to the study of religion and popular music. The cross-disciplinary approach of the book makes it accessible and appealing to scholars of religious studies, cultural studies, popular music studies and theology. Unlike existing collections dealing with popular music and religion that focus on a specific genre, this innovative book offers a range of music and case studies, with chapters written by international contributors.

Georgina Gregory is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She is author of Relocating Popular Music (2015) and Send in the Clones: A Cultural Study of the Tribute Band.

Christopher Partridge is Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, UK. He is the author of several books, including High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World (2018) and Mortality and Music: Popular Music and the Awareness of Death (2015)

Mike Dines is an independent scholar with close links with the University of West London, UK. He is Co-Editor of Punk Pedagogies (2018), Postgraduate Voices in Punk Studies (2016), and The Aesthetic of Our Anger:Anarcho-Punk, Politics and Music (2016).

Marcus Moberg is Professor of Theology and Study of Religions at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His research interests include the sociology of religion, media and culture, religion, markets and consumer culture studies, and the discursive study of religion.