“In the world but not of it: Keep Calm and

Carry On”

Dr Bex Lewis (@drbexl)Research Fellow in Social Media and Online Learning, CODEC Centre for Digital

Theology, Durham UniversityJuly 2015 for http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/lifelong-learning/events/

fandomconference, Leicesterhttp://www.slideshare.net/drbexl

/in-the-world-but-not-of-it-keep-calm-and-carry-on-for

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

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KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON1939 - 2015

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2010: BBC Inside Out

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Total War

• During the war, a ‘shared sense of national identity had to be mobilised amongst the people of Britain’. Achieved partly through propaganda posters, more and more people ‘were encouraged to identify themselves as active citizens, as active members of the nation’, a citizenship ‘to be earned by communal and individual service of one’s nation in wartime’.

• PhD thesis (2004), quoting Noakes, L., War and the British: Gender and National Identity, 1939-91, 1998, p.48.

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Benedict Anderson ‘Imagined Communities’

what ‘makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name’

http://tinyurl.com/imaginedcommunities

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What can you buy?

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150159936105685.293432.180104880684 @drbexl

CHRISTIAN VERSIONS

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Second World War

“There is nothing timeless and unchanging about this culture; fandom originates as a response to specific historical conditions (Jenkins, 1992, 3). Those conditions stem from shifts in the media and their tendency to reconfigure everyday experience.” Duffet, M. Understanding Fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture, 2013, p.5

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“The often cited ‘battles over hearts and minds’ … all do not solely depend on rational discourses but on the ability to present a cause or public figure in which we, as readers, can find our selves and to which we emotionally relate.”Gray, J., Sandvoss, C. & Harrington, C.L. Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, 2007, p.10

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Visiting Barter Books

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Christian VersionsIntertextuality assumes that the meaning of one text is shaped through the lens of other texts. For Christians, our interpretation is likely to be shaped through our faith, and some of the strongest designs have clear biblical resonance. “Keep Calm & Pray On”, draws on Philippians 4:6:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

or Matthew 6:34, whilst Matthew 5:44 can clearly be seen in “Love Those Who are Foes”. “Keep Calm and Know that I am God” has origins in Psalm 46:10, a verse that in our overly busy lives we should take more notice.http://www.transpositions.co.uk/keep-calm-and-pray-on/@drbexl

Muslim

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Jewish

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Hindu

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Eden Network

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Third Way Magazine, 2010

“Where some have pointed at a kind of existential emptiness in the original, such reinvention offers a constructive variation of the theme, reminding people in times of crisis that they are not alone, have something to hold onto, and can trust in God to provide a deeper meaning and identity.”

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Thank you for your time…

QUESTIONS?

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