30 research outputs found
Vernacular mourning and corporate memorialization in framing the death of Steve Jobs
This article explores the role of vernacular mourning in framing the death of Apple co-founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs. Using the concept of heterotopia to explore the spatiotemporal power relations of contemporary organizational memorialization, we show how the construction of temporary shrines and visual imagery rendered spaces and objects temporarily sacred and maintained Jobs as an ongoing presence in the lives of consumer-believers. Our analysis of these mourning practices identifies three themes: the construction of shrines as temporary organizational memorials in vernacular mourning; the distribution of photographs as memento mori; and the role of official corporate memorialization in disciplining mourners into letting go, severing their connection with Jobs so that the organization could continue without his physical presence. This highlights the importance of organizations in attempting to control mourning through official corporate memorialization and reveals the power relations entailed in determining who and what is mourned in organizational life, and how the dead are remembered
Decision-making processes for public memorials in Seoul: How well do they reflect and contribute to South Korea’s democracy?
Strategic canonisation : sanctity, popular culture and the Catholic Church
In his twenty-seven year reign (1978-2005), Pope John Paul II created not only more
saints than any other pope in history, but also more saints than all the other popes
put together since Pope Urban VIII centralised control of saint-making in 1634. This
article argues that the elevation of ‘celebrity saints’, such as Padre Pio and Mother
Theresa, can be seen as an attempt on the part of the Catholic Church to strengthen
its presence within the arena of popular culture. Through a sustained programme of
‘strategic canonization’, John Paul II promoted models of sanctity that conveyed very
clear social and political messages. Such messages were amplified through extensive
Catholic media and, where ‘celebrity saints’ were involved, through the secular
media too. These processes are analysed first, in relation to the general area of
sexual politics; and secondly, to the Church’s historic relationship with Nazism.
Whilst John Paul’s programme may not have achieved all that it intended, it clearly
demonstrated the Catholic Church’s unique capacity to reinvent very old forms of
cultural policy for changing times