Mini University Conversations: Oprah Winfrey as an American Icon

What is an icon? Religious Studies professor Kathryn Lofton discusses the iconography of Oprah Winfrey in terms of her marketability, her racial profile, and her moral and spiritual authority through what Lofton terms an evangelical narrative. Shes an icon both of a female need for confirmation and affirmation, but shes also an icon of American capitalist success.