Dancing In My Dreams

When Tina Turner reclaimed her throne as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1980s, she attributed her comeback to one thing: the wisdom and power she found in Buddhism. Her spiritual transformation is often overshadowed by the rags-to-riches arc of her life story. But in this biography, Ralph H. Craig III traces Tina’s journey from the Black Baptist church to Buddhism and situates her at the vanguard of large-scale movements in religion and pop culture.

Paying special attention to the diverse metaphysical beliefs that shaped her spiritual life, Craig untangles Tina’s Soka Gakkai Buddhist foundation; her incorporation of New Age ideas popularized in ’60s counterculture; and her upbringing in a Black Baptist congregation, alongside the influences of her grandmothers’ disciplinary and mystical sensibilities. Through critical engagement with Tina’s personal life and public brand, Craig sheds light on how popular culture has been used as a vehicle for authentic religious teaching.

Release: November 07, 2023
Writer: Ralph H. Craig III
Foreword: Jan Willis
Pages: 228
Format: Hardcover
Language: English

Ralph H. Craig III

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Ralph H. Craig III is a scholar of religion whose research focuses on pre-modern South Asian Buddhism and late nineteenth- and twentieth-century American religious history. He received his B.A. in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Stanford University. His dissertation is a study of early medieval representations of Buddhist preachers across South Asian Buddhist literature. His research interests include religious authority, religion and race, popular culture, metaphysics, and philosophy.