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Standing on Holy Ground: Exploring Taylor Swift Fan Culture as a Modern Religion

Standing on Holy Ground: Exploring Taylor Swift Fan Culture as a Modern Religion Phoebe Salomon HONR 490 Christopher Newport University April 19, 2024 Copyright 2024 Phoebe Salomon In today’s world, there are fan groups for almost anything one can think of. Trekkies, fans of the Star Trek franchise, are often considered the first media fandom. Potterheads and Whovians, fans of Harry Potter and Doctor Who, respectively, are two other famous examples. Through the growing prominence of popular culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and the rise of social media, there are more fandoms than ever before. The devotion fans have to a television show, a movie franchise, or a specific celebrity has led some scholars to draw connections between fandom and religion. While others take issue with this comparison, largely due to the complexity of religion, several key components in religion can be identified in fan culture—everything from rituals and symbols to spiritual exper...
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December Recap

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Life Events:   December 4: Tree Lighting at CNU The night before finals week begins, CNU always holds the annual tree lighting! Mckenzie, Anna, and I made a night of it by grabbing dinner before. It ended up being a really great night! Here is us in front of the tree in the Library Here is us in front of the tree! December 5-9: Finals Week/End of the Semester As always, finals week is a very stressful time of the semester. But I got through it! Ending with three A's and two A-'s. This also means I made the Dean's List, which is linked below! Dean's List Fall 2022 December 11-20: Vacation!   Immediately after finals ended, we set off on a Great Northeast Adventure! We stopped in New York City, Worcester, MA, Troy, NY, and Philadelphia.  The photo album below has a little highlight reel of everything we did! Vacation Photos https://link.shutterfly.com/y8tSSjl5owb Books Read: The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li Kiss Me in New York by...
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October Recap

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Life Events:   October 6: Petting Zoo   During midterms and finals, CNU often has small events to help relieve stress. This year they had a petting zoo the week of midterms! There were dogs, horses, goats, even an alpaca. But the star of the show was definitely this baby cow! October 14: Small Business Fair For the third time, I participated in my school's Small Business Fair held by the Entrepreneurship Club. While not as successful as I have been in the past, it was still fun to chat with people and share my craft and business. Below was my table setup! October 23: Hanging with Friends!   The semester has been so busy that I haven't able to spend too much time with my friends outside of class or quick lunch dates. We finally found time! I had an amazing time hanging out with my two friends McKenzie and Anna. Although we had intended it to be a sunset picnic hangout, unfortunately, it had rained for most of the day so it was too cloudy for a good sunset. But we still had...
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September Recap

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  Life Events:    September 14 and 20: Dance Concert Auditions This year I auditioned to be a part of CNU's Dance Concert again! The first audition was for student choreographers. Unfortunately, my piece was not selected due to too many seniors auditioning, but I am still going to stage my piece for a different project. More on that later! Next up were the auditions to dance in the Dance Concert. I was #7 (my lucky number!) and had so much fun! I got two callbacks, which were held the next day. I am happy to announce that I have been cast in three pieces!! This is the maximum a dancer can be cast in per the department's rules. I can't wait to begin rehearsals!! (Not the greatest picture I know, but wanted to share something!) My Classes: A little summary of what I've been learning in my classes! Statistics for Social Research: This is a bit complicated to explain, but we are continuing to review what we all learned in Elementary Statistics. We also had our first test th...
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August Recap

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Life Events:    August 19: Welcome Back Picnic While technically only for freshman and faculty, since I didn't get a picnic last year due to COVID my parents and I went to the Welcome Back Picnic the Friday before the first day of school. We also invited my friend McKenzie, a fellow CNU student!   August 22: First Day of Sophomore Year!   This semester, I am taking German 200, Statistics for Social Research, Popular Genres (with a true crime and crime fiction focus), Migration, Displacement, and Refugees, and my Honors class is Dance Studies. This semester I am also continuing as Dr. Christopher Loy's research assistant. His plan for us this semester is a project relating to soil analysis. I also have a new position as an intern with the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. I am completing a remote internship with them to fulfill one of my requirements for my major. My primary job will be doing background research for them as they prepare fo...
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Welcome!

 Hello everyone! I'm using this blog as a way to record moments in my life as well as share them with others. I hope to share important events in addition to the simple things, such as books I have been reading and music I have been listening too.  I hope you enjoy! Phoebe :)
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