My name is Rosemary, and I’m a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication where I study the intersection of media, religion, and modernity. I’m specifically interested in personal and institutional religious narratives, the public performance of religious identity, and the processes of institutional meaning-making viewed through an interpretive cultural studies framework. To date, I’ve focused much of my academic attention on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or the Mormons), but my ongoing interest is in religious communication more generally.
As a scholar of religious communication, I envision this site as a place to explore current events of interest to scholars and practitioners of religion as well as those interested in understanding traditions, beliefs, and practices different than their own. The goal is dialogue and cooperation, not denigration or expose. Still, dialogue is grounded in mutual understanding, and understanding is predicated on transparency. My posts will attempt to get at religious matters from various perspectives but, recognizing the importance and fragility of talk about the sacred, I will try to stay as objective and empathetic as possible. With these goals in mind, please feel free to take part.