Making the Strange Familiar. (6th September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pike, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Pomegranate. Volume 17:Number 1/2(2015)
• Page Start: 170
• Page End: 179
• Publication Date: 2015-09-06
• Subjects: pagan festivals -- childhood -- sacred space; Neopaganism -- Periodicals; Paganism -- Periodicals; 299.9405
• DOI: 10.1558/pome.v17i1-2.28296
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1528-0268

Abstract

Abstract : From studying Pagan festivals as a graduate student to writing about Burning Man, Hare Krishna hardcore music, ecstatic dance and so-called eco-terrorists twenty years later, this essay describes my journey as an academic through what many other religious studies scholars might consider the fringe of our academic purview. In the essay I consider the ways in which the concerns that emerged in my earliest work in Pagan Studies—sacred space, the role of memory in identity construction, relationships with the more-than-human world, ritual creativity, religious freedom, childhood experience and religious improvisation—continue to be central to my scholarship over two decades later.