Pull up a chair or twenty, and join us for a conversation about Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets (2023). Made famous in the mainstream for their TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar presented a very specific image of a very large family within the “Quiverfull” movement whose children were reliably obedient and mild-mannered. Behind the literal and figurative scenes, however, the line between authority and abuse was often a blurry one, both for the family and for the Institute in Basic Life Principles, whose teachings were reflected by the Duggars at every turn. Merinda has logistical questions about big families and returns to the mundane workings of power. Mike watches cartoons and muses about strategies within group mobilization. As always, we think together about how/when/why “cult” rhetoric appears, who wields it, and what its effects are. #cultfavorite #duggars #studyreligion

Links:

Danielle Lindemann, True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us (2022) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374720964/truestory/

Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1991)

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300050608/the-democratization-of-american-christianity/

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.