Representing Religion in World Cinema

Religious traditions have provided a seemingly endless supply of subject matter for film, from the Ten Commandments to the Mahabharata . At the same time, film production has engendered new religious practices and has altered existing ones, from the cult following of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to the 2001 Australian census in which 70,000 people indicated their religion to be 'Jedi Knight'. Representing Religion in World Cinema begins with these mutual transformations as the contributors query the two-way interrelations between film and religion across cinemas of the world. Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary by nature, this collection by an international group of scholars draws on work from religious studies, film studies, and anthropology, as well as theoretical impulses in performance, gender, ethnicity, colonialism, and postcolonialism.

"...argues persuasively for conceptualizing a georeligious film aesthetic. It does so by examining the infinitely varied processes by which films from diverse cultures and nations embody religious ideas and values which themselves are revitalized in the quintessential twentieth-century art form. This multi-disciplinary, multi-national volume promises to open up new perspectives on the complex relationships among religion, culture, spectatorship and cinema." - Matthew Bernstein, Emory University

"Representing Religion in World Cinema: Mythmaking, Filmmaking, Culture Making is a far-ranging, provocative collection that pushes the boundaries of religion-and-cinema studies way beyond where, for too long, they have rested too comfortably. The essays are carefully selected and usefully introduced by Brent Plate, so the volume will be most useful in the university classroom." - Ron Grimes, Wilfrid Laurier University

Auteur
S. BRENT PLATE is Assistant Professor of Religion and the Visual Arts at Texas Christian University. His previous publications include Imag(in)ing Otherness: Filmic Visions of Living Together, The Apocalyptic Imagination: Aesthetics and Ethics at the End of the World and Religion, Art, and Visual Culture (Palgrave).

Contenu
The Saint Films of India in the 1930s-1940s: Politics, Ideology, Historical Conjuncture; I.Bhaskar Buddhist Themes in Korean Film; F.Cho Voodoo at the Movies; D.Cosentino Adapting Orpheus; L.C.Ehrlich 'The Eyes of All People Are Upon Us': Hollywood and the American Civil Religion; K.Jozajtis O Brother, Where Art Thou? Fragments of an American Religious Vision; G.Laderman Who Wants to be a Goddess? Jai Santoshi Maa Revisited; P.Lutgendorf Jane Campion and the Cinematic Anthropology of Religion, Culture, and Gender; I.S.M.Makarushka Pentecostalism, Prosperity, and Popular Cinema in Ghana; B.Meyer Ethiopia and Mengistu: Filming Religion and the Red Terror; D.J.M.Middleton Secular Religion at the Movies; P.Nathanson Between Time and Eternity; P.Nathanson Angels in the Midst: Taking Apart Wim Wenders' Angels; S.Brent Plate Name the Same/Framed Differently: Islam in British and American Cinema; R.Raimji Religion and Morality in the Films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf; L.Ridgeon Santeria and the Quest for a Postcolonial Identity in Post-Revolutionary Cuban Cinema; E.M.Rodriguez-Mangual