Joanna Dee Das - "Faith, Family, and Flag" - Lizzie Leopold

Joanna Dee Das will discuss Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America. She will be joined in conversation by Lizzie Leopold. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. 

At the Co-op.

RSVP Here — please note your RSVP is requested but not required.

About the book: Branson, Missouri, the Ozark Mountain mecca of wholesome entertainment, has been home to countless stage shows espousing patriotism and Christianity, welcoming over ten million visitors a year. Some consider it “God’s Country” and others “as close to Hell as anything on Earth.” For Joanna Dee Das, Branson is a political, religious, and cultural harbinger of a certain enduring dream of what America is. She takes Branson more seriously than the light-hearted fun it advertises—and maybe we should too.

For Das, Branson’s performers offer visions of the American Dream that embody a set of values known as the three Fs: faith, family, and flag. Branson boosters insist that these are universal values that welcome all people; the city aims to capture as many tourists as possible. But over the past several decades, faith, family, and flag have become markers of contemporary conservatism. The shows and culture of Branson, for all their fun and laughter, have been a galvanizing political force for white, working-and-middle class, Christian Americans. For social and economic conservatives alike, Branson is practically proof-of-concept for America as they want it to be.

Faith, Family, and Flag is a comprehensive history of the Branson entertainment industry, within the context of America’s long culture wars. Das reveals how and why a town known for popular entertainment, a domain associated most often with the political left (“Hollywood liberals”), came to be so important to the political right and its vision for America.

About the author: Joanna Dee Das is associate professor of performing arts at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of the award-winning book Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora.

About the interlocutor: Lizzie Leopold is an Assistant Professor of Arts Administration & Policy at the School of the Art Institute Chicago. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Dance Studies Association and as a Lecturer in Theater & Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming Dancing on the Third Coast: Chicago Dance Histories (University of Illinois Press, co-editor Susan Manning). Leopold serves on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and the Morrison-Shearer Foundation.