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Review of: Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion, by Diane Winston, ed.

Small Screen, Big Picture brings together impressive range of scholars from anthropology, communication, media studies, and religious studies to tackle the oft-neglected topic of religion and television. Eschewing interpretive approaches that lament the negative effects of television, the volume foregrounds the category of lived religion to highlight how television provides “the cultural material that helps us to make sense of our lives, our relationships, and our search for meaning” (p. 428). As a result, the chapters in this edited collection grapple with the pervasive presence of television in American culture—the stories it tells and the resources it offers. This emphasis on religion as a dynamic meaning-making activity that often occurs through interactions with television programs makes a vital contribution to our thinking about contemporary American religious life and provides readers with “the first extended discussion of how television functions as a discursive space for constituting both individual and communal religious identity” (p. 3). Comprising 15 chapters (as well as an introduction and epilogue), Small Screen, Big Picture “look[s] at prime-time programs that premiered after 2000 and that forgo the explicitly religious or metaphysical elements of series such as Buffy, Seventh Heaven, or The Book of Daniel” (p. 4). Instead, chapters analyze fan favorites (e.g., House, Heroes, Lost) and cult classics (e.g., Xena: Warrior Princess, Battlestar Galactica) as a way to unpack the relationship between lived religion and television. While many of the chapters accomplish this through content analysis of dialogue, characterization, and visual cues, some incorporate substantial research on series’ creators to illuminate lived religion, and a few others venture into viewer fandom to more directly address the question of what people do with what they watch. This exploration of television and lived religion occurs within a tripartite structure with each part featuring four to six chapters that address diverse topics and shows. Section I, entitled “Old Wine in New Wine Skins,” focuses on portrayals of “old wine” religions— Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims—in shows such as Deadwood, The Wire, The West Wing, and The O.C. For example, Leonard Norman Primiano examines how the character of