Interview with the Author: American Possessions, by Sean McCloud

Sean McCloud is the author of American Possessions: Fighting Demons in Contemporary United States

What is the main argument in this book?

First, thank you for inviting me to speak with you, I really appreciate it. The focus of American Possessions is Third Wave Evangelicalism, a movement focused on fighting the demons that practitioners see pestering and inhabiting human bodies, material objects, places, and regions of cities and countries.  In brief, I argue that this movement and its practice of spiritual warfare exhibits several prominent themes that characterize contemporary U.S. cultures. Specifically, consumerist, haunted, and therapeutic discourses saturate contemporary American religions and converge in Third Wave Evangelicalism. In addition, I examine how the movement’s theologies and practices reflect and contest contemporary neoliberal discourses concerning agency, social structure, history, and conceptions of individuals. In other words, I think that an examination of Third Wave spiritual warfare reveals a lot about American religions and cultures in the twenty-first century.

What motivated your work?

I was originally working on another book project when I kept having happenstance encounters with people whose ideas and practices tapped into Third Wave spiritual warfare. I found the subject fascinating, but even more I found that it seemed to touch in many ways on a number of issues prescient to the study of contemporary American religions. I ended up dropping the other book project into a file and focusing on the research and writing that became American Possessions.

What theory or theorists inform your methodology?

I found a number of writers good to think with. These include Eva Illouz on therapeutic language; Jean Comaroff, Birgit Meyer, and Matthew Wood on neoliberal consumer capitalism and religion; and Avery Gordon on haunting. And--even though he is cited just once in the book--the work of Pierre Bourdieu haunts nearly every page.  At base, the approach I take in this and all of my work is what might be considered materialist social theory. By this I mean that I am interested in how social structures, histories, and material conditions shape our consciousnesses, bodies, and practices by fomenting comfort/discomfort and making certain ideas and actions appear more natural and commonsense than others.

How might the book be used or how has it been used in a classroom?

Several people told me that they have already used the book in a class since it came out in May, but I am not sure how they used it. I could imagine it being assigned in courses on contemporary American religions, the supernatural in American culture, religion and capitalism, and theories and methods courses.

How do you think students would most benefit from your book?

This is a tough question because I am not a fan of self-promotion and these sorts of queries can lead to that, infused as they often can be with passively phrased boasting about the usefulness, importance, and lasting significance of one’s work. Don’t get me wrong—I think I’ve written a pretty good book. But I am growing weary of academics promoting themselves and their scholarship in ways that seem propelled by the very neoliberal consumer capitalist discourses that this book discusses. I guess I will leave it by saying that I hope the work conjures up some of the ways that those things we call religion, popular culture, and economy are historically and materially intertwined. And, perhaps even more, I hope it reveals how practices, ideas, and conceptions of self are not separate from, but rather dependent upon, the social structures within which they reside.