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Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2001 69(1):1-20; doi:10.1093/jaarel/69.1.1
© 2001 by American Academy of Religion
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ARTICLES

The Segregation of Social Desire: "Religion" and Disney World

William Arnal

William Arnal is Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Program, New York University New York, NY 10003

This article, inspired by the decision to hold the 1998 American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting on the Disney World grounds, attempts to compare the construction of "fantasy" in Disney-related phenomena with the generation of "religion" as a category, arguing that both serve the liberal political agenda of modernity: they create special enclosures that serve to segregate positive ends-oriented behavior, to minimize the social impact of subjectively determined human goals and desires. The essay goes on to argue that the conditions of post-modernity, which have altered some key modern values, have impacted the appropriation of fantasy and the political utility of religion simultaneously, largely by commodifying and festishizing both. These postmodern alterations, however, do not in the end allow for any more efficacious expression of desire at the social level than did modernity.


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