9781481311977-1481311972-Miss America’s God: Faith and Identity in America’s Oldest Pageant

Miss America’s God: Faith and Identity in America’s Oldest Pageant

ISBN-13: 9781481311977
ISBN-10: 1481311972
Author: Mandy McMichael
Publication date: 2019
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Format: Hardcover 261 pages
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Book details

ISBN-13: 9781481311977
ISBN-10: 1481311972
Author: Mandy McMichael
Publication date: 2019
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Format: Hardcover 261 pages

Summary

Miss America’s God: Faith and Identity in America’s Oldest Pageant (ISBN-13: 9781481311977 and ISBN-10: 1481311972), written by authors Mandy McMichael, was published by Baylor University Press in 2019. With an overall rating of 4.3 stars, it's a notable title among other Churches & Church Leadership (Christian Books & Bibles) books. You can easily purchase or rent Miss America’s God: Faith and Identity in America’s Oldest Pageant (Hardcover) from BooksRun, along with many other new and used Churches & Church Leadership books and textbooks. And, if you're looking to sell your copy, our current buyback offer is $0.3.

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Review
McMichael’s extensive ethnographic study demonstrates the depth and sincerity of her scholarship and gives weight to her critique. No one could accuse the author of an armchair understanding of the Miss America Pageant and its contestants, as she spent many years surveying and speaking with hopefuls... All of her painstaking ethnographic work was undertaken in an effort to decipher pageant narratives and situate them within American religious history’ (9). In this effort, McMichael deserves a crown, sash, and bouquet of roses. -- Carissa S. Wyant ― Reading Religion
Miss America’s God is not only an enjoyable read, but also an incredibly versatile book that could be a useful text in countless course syllabi. From American Studies to Cultural History to American Religion to Gender and Sexuality, McMichael’s work provides a valuable contribution to understanding and thinking about the evolution of gender roles in American society as seen through the nation’s oldest pageant. -- Andrew Gardner ― Baptist History and Heritage
McMichael deftly brings together a multitude of voices to examine the alliance between religion, mostly conservative Christianity, and the Miss America pageant. The resulting story is strikingly smart and compulsively readable. -- Darren J. N. Middleton ― Perspectives in Religious Studies
The Miss America pageant has extraordinary staying power. Despite the cultural winds of the past century, Miss America continues to captivate the nation, giving America what it wants most―sex, entertainment, competition, religion, and even self-discovery.
In Miss America’s God, Mandy McMichael traces the pageant’s long and complicated history. She demonstrates that the pageant is a little explored window into American culture, one that reveals a complex cocktail of all Americans hold dear. Ultimately, McMichael contends that the pageant is an unexpected cultural space of religious expression and self-discovery for many contestants whose faith communities support and validate their pageant participation.
Miss America’s God utilizes feminist theory, women’s history, sociology, psychology, ethnography, and religious studies to explain the enduring popularity of the pageant, as well as religion’s curious embrace of its spectacle. While contestants use the pageant to build faith and identity, the pageant uses the faith of the contestants to remain relevant in a society that is increasingly suspicious of it. McMichael shows just how central religion has been to Miss America. Religion, for Miss America, sanctifies sex, ritualizes entertainment, justifies competition, and enables self-discovery. Religion makes Miss America a cultural icon that withstands the test of time.

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