Feeling Jesus in the Backbeat: Gender, Emotion, and Experience in a Post-Modern Church

Team Members/Contributors

Kevin Lowell McElmurry University of Missouri-Columbia Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

My dissertation examines the intersections of gender, emotion, and experience in a seeker-oriented Protestant congregation. I bring theoretical contributions from cultural studies, sociology of religion, and recent work on masculinity to show how faith and practice combine in churches weaving traditional and contemporary cultural forms to reach the unchurched. My project details the specific and sometimes contradictory experiences of men and women who draw on a range of cultural resources institutional, traditional, and mediated to live out their faith commitments.

For two years I have been a participant observer in meetings, rehearsals, services, classes, planning sessions, and by simply socializing with other participants. I have kept detailed fieldnotes and memos for all of this activity. I have 42 in-depth interviews with staff, volunteers, and congregants, including 23 journals kept by study participants at my request. I have served as consultant to the church as they surveyed their congregation. I also have access to written and recorded (audio and video) archives that span the 20 year history of the church. My dissertation is ethnographic, with all the rich detail the method allows. I draw on the strengths of these data sources to document current complexities for blending tradition and change.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  "Alone/Together: The Production of Religious Culture in a Church for the Unchurched" 2009 Dissertation Kevin Lowell McElmurry