Religious Television Networks in American Culture by Kayti Lausch A
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Building a Climate of Righteousness: Religious Television Networks in American Culture by Kayti Lausch A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Film, Television, and Media) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Yeidy Rivero, Chair Associate Professor Stephen Berrey Associate Professor Daniel Herbert Professor Victoria E. Johnson, University of California, Irvine Kayti Lausch [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7176-9069 © Kayti Lausch 2020 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have so many people I want to thank, and I truthfully have spent many nights anxiously drafting these acknowledgements in my head when I couldn’t sleep. Now that it is finally time to write them, however, I find myself overwhelmed by the support I’ve received during my time as a graduate student, and incredibly grateful to have been able to work alongside so many truly wonderful colleagues, friends, and mentors. The journey through the dissertation writing process has been much more fun than it had any right to be, and I have you all to thank for that. I would like to begin by thanking my dissertation committee. Thank you to Yeidy Rivero for your generous mentorship, and for believing in me and this project for the last seven years, and for always rearranging the paragraphs in my introductions. I am very lucky to be your advisee. I would like to thank Dan Herbert for his support through several seminars of me working out what this project was going to be, and for his enthusiasm for hallway and lounge chats. I would like to thank Stephen Berrey for his thoughtful questions, for our independent study which truly reshaped my approach to this project, and for always writing the nicest emails. Finally, a thank you to Vicky Johnson for taking me on and helping me imagine new possibilities for this research. You are all the kind of generous and brilliant scholars that I would like to be, and your support has meant so much to me. This dissertation was made possible by the financial support of the Rackham Graduate School. I was and remain particularly grateful to have received the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, which supported my research and gave me the invaluable gift of time. The Rackham ii travel and research grants were also essential to making this project the best version of itself. I am also incredibly grateful to our graduate student union. Life as a graduate student as Michigan is better because of their tireless efforts. The archival research trips for this project were so fun and energizing, and that is due in no small part to the work of the wonderful archivists who made the research process so seamless and enjoyable. I would especially like to thank Donald Gantz of Regent University’s Library Special Collections for his generosity and his enthusiasm when bringing me boxes upon boxes of archival material. I would like to extend my thanks the entire staff of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives for their help navigating their vast collection. I’d particularly like to thank Taffey Hall for her friendliness, her restaurant recommendations, and for sharing her moon pies with me. The journey to this project began at Cornell University (and probably even before that, but I’ll save that for my memoirs.) My advisors, Sabine Haenni and Nick Salvato, supported my decision to write a television project, were very generous with their time and advice, and were among the first people to assure me that I could actually be an academic. I am also so grateful for the friends I made there, and whose texts, messages, and phone/video calls have never failed to bring a smile to my face. Thank you to Brad Walker for all the Ithaca photos, Stevie Dembowski for all the amazing hiking postcards, Katie Olsen for being my Broadway buddy and letting me crash on her couch, Lauryn Hayes for having the best laugh, and Kelsey Long, for intimidating me with your amazing workout photos and sending me any and all High School Musical content. My time at The University of Texas at Austin was similarly formative for this project, and I still feel so lucky to have been able to participate in seminars with so many wonderful students and professors. Mary Beltrán, Mary Celeste Kearney, and Jennifer Fuller all taught iii challenging and engaging classes that really shaped how I think about media and identity. Thank you to Colleen Montgomery, Taylor Cole Miller, Tim Piper, Morgan O’Brien, Laura Felschow, Ben Kruger-Robbins—and many others I’m sure I’m accidentally, unforgivably forgetting—for being thoughtful, sharp seminar-mates and some of my very favorite people to run into at conferences. And a special shoutout to Al Martin for his generous mentorship—I cherish your friendship and our conference hangs. I would like to express my appreciation for the Film, Television, and Media faculty, whose support over the years has made me a better scholar. I have been lucky to be a part of such a supportive intellectual community at the University of Michigan. Many of you have watched my research presentations or workshopped parts of this project with me, and your feedback has been invaluable throughout this process. Sarah Murray, Amanda Lotz, Swapnil Rai, Johannes von Moltke, Giorgio Bertellini, Colin Gunckel, Matthew Solomon, Sheila Murphy, and Melissa Phruksachart have all helped to mold me as a scholar and asked me the exact right questions to expand my thinking at various moments. A super special shoutout to Carrie Moore, Mary Lou Chlipala, Marga Schuhwerk-Hampel, and Lisa Rohde-Barbeau for keeping the department running smoothly and always knowing the answers to my administrative questions. I dearly miss running into all of you in the kitchen. And thank you to all of the FTVM graduate students—I am sad to be leaving our little community but very confident that it’s in good hands. This dissertation truly would not exist without writing groups of every stripe. Thank you to David Hutchinson, Tuğçe Kayaal, Katy Holihan, Sarah Erickson, Hillina Seife, Yasmine Espert, and Allan Martel, for your helpful feedback on countless drafts. Thank you also to my favorite accountability pals: Annemarie Navar-Gill, Nicky Hentrich, Caitlin Lawson, and Arcelia Gutierrez. Writing with you guys is so much more fun than writing alone; thank you for keeping iv me on track and listening to my many research anecdotes. (Annemarie and Nicky, thank you also for all of the Raúl Ezparza content.) A huge thank you to the Media Studies Research Workshop and to all who make it a productive collaborative space. Your feedback has been invaluable to this process, and engaging with your work has made me a better scholar. I truly feel lucky to have made so many friends during grad school and to have been able to be part of such a vibrant and lively community. I want to thank Erin Hanna for welcoming me into the fold my first year—I still miss our Gilmore Girls salons. Thank you to Dimitri Pavlounis for loving “U Talkin’ U2 2 Me” as much as me, and thank you to Nathan Koob for introducing me to the insanity of Kenny vs. Spenny. Thank you to Richard Mwakasege-Minaya for surviving all of those film seminars with me. Yuki Nakayama and Nazarina Mwakasege-Minaya, I hope we can grab brunch in person again someday soon. I’ve had so much fun teaching with Kaelie Thompson and Sophia Chen. To Joseph DeLeon, thank you for all the Honolulu memories (shave ice!!) and for being so fun to talk to. Mom and Dad, I don’t even know what to say. Thank you so much for believing in me throughout this entire process, and for all of your support over the years. Mom, thank you for going on the Virginia Beach research trip with me—sorry again about the traffic. I love you both very much. Becky, omg you’re the best. Thank you for the thousands of the cat photos. I’m #blessed to be your sister. Now go pet Sam Francisco for me! I would be remiss if I did not also thank my dearly departed Alpha Cat, Addie Mae, who left me early in the dissertation writing process but was never far from my mind. But we cannot end this on a sad note! So lastly, I would like to thank my favorite friends for enriching my life in so many ways. Sean Donovan, you film-loving rascal, watching movies with you is one of my very favorite things. You are a marvelous scholar and I’m so excited to see v where this journey takes you. I’m very glad that you convinced me re-embrace (some) films, and that you recognized Broom Darryl all those years ago. To Kelly Thomas, I’m so eternally glad that my moving to Michigan has reunited us for so many years. Being your friend has been one of the true joys of my life, and you have made living in the Mitten so much more fun than it ever could have been without you. I remain exceedingly glad that you enjoy watching me agonize over closely contested tennis matches featuring Roger Federer. To Katy Peplin and Anne Charlotte Mecklenburg, thank you for reading every word of this dissertation, many of them more than once. You both have made this project so much better through your feedback—thank you for letting me yell into the Slack void and for nodding faux- convincingly every time I said a chapter was going to be too short.