Happy May the Fourth! Today we bring you a special episode of The Religious Studies Project to celebrate 2020’s International Star Wars Day. After the release of Star Wars film in 1977, it became obvious that creator George Lucas had tapped into something profound. Over the next few decades, Star Wars became a behemoth worth billions of dollars and a multi-media franchise spanning film, television, video games, comic books, novels, theme parks, toys, and much more. Since 2012, the RSP has touched on Star Wars many times, most often in discussions of invented, fictional, or hyper-real religions. Enjoy the selections from six different episodes as we learn why this franchise and other popular cultural institutions are important sites for the production of identity and the construction of the category of religion.

To hear the original recordings, please visit the following episodes: