Détourning American Civil Religion Through Snowpiercer: Problem or Promise?

• In Event: Religion and Education in Pluralistic Contexts

Abstract

The central concern of this analysis is how civil religion operates in public schools with an eye to American society at large. This effort is achieved using scenes from the dystopian film Snowpiercer and other media via detournement, a method rooted in the work of Guy Debord. Specifically, I argue that civil religious debates play out in public schools in a way that makes them major sites of contestation over the meaning of what it means to be American and the role education plays in that process. The detournement serves as a challenge to broaden the scope of our national story—and the civil religious discourses that animate it—inside and outside of our public schools.

Author

• Jeremy Godwin, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill