Title: Religion and the Television Procedural: Investigating Faith, One Hour at a Time

Volume Editor: John W. McCormack

Abstract and CV Due: December 15, 2023

Contact: ProceduralReligion@gmail.com

The procedural drama is one of the most reproduced and reliably bankable formats in American television. Franchises such as Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, FBI, and the Chicago universe (Fire, P.D., and Med) have remained among the most-watched shows on annual lists reaching back well into the 1990s. Even as serialized prestige dramas came to dominate awards seasons and streaming platforms changed both viewing habits and the possibilities for long-form storytelling, the format of the procedural remains popular and profitable. As a popular culture staple of the last five decades with a history stretching back to the earliest years of the television industry, the procedural drama is an important place to look for stories that have formed American views about religion, theology, and moral and social order. Whether focused on lawyers, doctors, police, or forensic scientists, the genre’s “case of the week” setup enables viewers to identify with the skills and dispositions of the professional investigators tasked with maintaining the health of the social body. Procedurals make heroes out of folks doing their jobs, normalize the structures and institutions within which they work, and make villains out of anyone who gets in the way of solving the case.

The volume will examine episodes, characters, and series from this genre both for what they say specifically about particular religions and for the larger social imaginary they build for their viewers. The essays will demonstrate collectively that this genre does crucial work in shaping views of religion in America by framing religious belief, practice, and experience through the investigative labor of professions policing the critical boundaries of public health and criminal justice, regularly adjudicating life and death on screen.

Proposals are welcome from scholars working across a variety of disciplines (religious studies, theology, sociology, criminology, media studies, history, philosophy, and more). There are far too many examples of the procedural to list them all here. Have a question about whether your favorite show “counts,” or want to discuss an idea before submitting an abstract? Please email ProceduralReligion@gmail.com or send a DM to @McCJohnW on Twitter.

Possible topics for chapter authors may include:

• Religion, policing, and the community (in LA Law, Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, etc.)
• Medical dramas’ portrayals of religious belief (Grey’s Anatomy, House, ER, Chicago Hope, etc.)
• Science and religious belief (in Bones, the CSI franchise, etc.)
• Religious institutions, the legal system, and political power (especially the Catholic Church and its clergy)
• Responses to clerical sex abuse (especially in Law & Order: SVU)
• Depictions of New Religious Movements (NRMs, aka “cults”)
• Supernatural characters and world-building (especially in Lucifer)
• Race, racism, and religious identity
• Morality, sin, punishment, and the legal system
• Professional responsibility (for the lawyers, doctors, police officers, forensic techs who populate these shows) and religious belief and practice
• Islamophobia and depictions of terrorism
• Character development and the religious journeys of major protagonists (Elliot Stabler fans, you know you’re out there!)

Volume Timeline:

• December 15, 2023: Please send a 300- to 500-word abstract and a current CV to ProceduralReligion@gmail.com.
• January 15, 2024: Notifications sent to accepted authors, along with a provisional table of contents.
• May 30, 2024: Full essays (6,000 to 8,000 words) due.
• July 1, 2024: Drafts returned to authors for revision.
• October 1, 2024: Final revised essays due.
• December 1, 2024: Full manuscript submitted for peer review.