• Art,  Christianity,  Theology and the Arts,  Uncategorized

    Rites of Passage in Pop and Faith: Lady Gaga and the Formation of Identities

    ‘Our life consists not only in being but also in becoming’: so runs a memorable line from the Marriage Liturgy currently authorised for use in the Scottish Episcopal Church.[1] Such rites of passage provide opportunities for taking stock of who and how we are in the world, and for reflecting on the ways – great and small, obvious and inconspicuous, collective and individual – we emerge and evolve. Behind this lies an understanding of identity as something dynamic: a transformative journey in which we negotiate what is found (being) and what is fashioned (becoming). Rites of passage is a term coined by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in a short…