Content area
Full text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
It is so commonplace to paint Oprah Winfrey in religious terms that the "Church of Oprah" was a recurring phrase in coverage of the end of her talk show after a quarter-century on air. In 1996, Time magazine ordained Winfrey "almost a religion"; in 2002, Christianity Today dubbed her an "icon of church-free spirituality"; and in 2011, Winfrey's reign as talk show queen was characterized by the Wall Street Journal as "25 years of syndicated pastoral work." Kathryn Lofton's Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon investigates this association and enriches our understanding of the intersection of religion, media and culture.
An assistant professor of religious studies and American studies at Yale University, Lofton proposes that delving into the phenomenon that is "Oprah" - at once pop-culture icon and billionaire media mogul - can shed light on the place of religion in modern society. Her book joins a growing body of scholarship on Winfrey's enterprise across a range of disciplines (e.g. sociology, media studies, English, women's studies), which indicates the complexity of an object of inquiry that encompasses a sprawling media empire, a...