Religion, Film, Methodology

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2013) | Viewed by 385970

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Studies in Religion, The University of Sydney, Room N412, A20-John Woolley, NSW 2006, Australia
Interests: new religious movements (especially Asia); art and religion; the screen (television, film) and religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our ever-deepening experiences with film and the affect of cinema in the digital age are changing the scope of how we read film religiously. This increasingly powerful engagement between representation and religion is the inspiration behind this special edition of Religions. This volume seeks papers from academics excited about film’s potential for expanding our understanding of the religious, and similarly the ability of methodologies utilised in religious studies to provide new insight into the cinematic experience. Articles that consider the interface of religion and film from any well-considered methodological perspective will be welcomed. This includes, but it not limited to, how we deploy trans-national schemas, paradigms of visual and material culture, grace and the moment (via Badiou), pedagogical approaches, new Marxist comprehensions, cinaesthetics, psycho-history, performance analysis, transcendental and cultural studies, and so on. We plan to make this an outstanding volume on the latest thinking on approaches to how religion and cinema interrelate.

Dr. Christopher Hartney
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • religion
  • film
  • cinema
  • methodology
  • affect
  • digital
  • materialism

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

95 KiB  
Article
A Biblical Poetics for Filmmakers
by Dennis Packard, Preston Campbell and Jason McDonald
Religions 2014, 5(2), 502-521; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5020502 - 19 Jun 2014
Viewed by 5459
Abstract
In this paper, we present a poetics, or guide manual, for making narrative films that resemble biblical narratives. It is similar to Aristotle’s Poetics, only his was for creating drama (though it is of course often used for film now) and was based [...] Read more.
In this paper, we present a poetics, or guide manual, for making narrative films that resemble biblical narratives. It is similar to Aristotle’s Poetics, only his was for creating drama (though it is of course often used for film now) and was based on Greek dramas and epics. Our poetics is specifically for making films and is based on an even more ancient body of narratives—the Hebrew Bible. In articulating a biblical poetics for filmmakers, we draw heavily on the work of a few of the many biblical-narrative scholars of the last half-century, who draw in turn from the even more extensive research that has been done on narrative theory in general. Our project is one that Aristotle might have undertaken if he had read the Bible and its commentators and known about film. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Film, Methodology)
1637 KiB  
Article
‘Snapewives’ and ‘Snapeism’: A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom
by Zoe Alderton
Religions 2014, 5(1), 219-267; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5010219 - 3 Mar 2014
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 371195
Abstract
The book and film franchise of Harry Potter has inspired a monumental fandom community with a veracious output of fanfiction and general musings on the text and the vivid universe contained therein. A significant portion of these texts deal with Professor Severus Snape, [...] Read more.
The book and film franchise of Harry Potter has inspired a monumental fandom community with a veracious output of fanfiction and general musings on the text and the vivid universe contained therein. A significant portion of these texts deal with Professor Severus Snape, the stern Potions Master with ambiguous ethics and loyalties. This paper explores a small community of Snape fans who have gone beyond a narrative retelling of the character as constrained by the work of Joanne Katherine Rowling. The ‘Snapewives’ or ‘Snapists’ are women who channel Snape, are engaged in romantic relationships with him, and see him as a vital guide for their daily lives. In this context, Snape is viewed as more than a mere fictional creation. He is seen as a being that extends beyond the Harry Potter texts with Rowling perceived as a flawed interpreter of his supra-textual essence. While a Snape religion may be seen as the extreme end of the Harry Potter fandom, I argue that religions of this nature are not uncommon, unreasonable, or unprecedented. Popular films are a mechanism for communal bonding, individual identity building, and often contain their own metaphysical discourses. Here, I plan to outline the manner in which these elements resolve within extreme Snape fandom so as to propose a nuanced model for the analysis of fandom-inspired religion without the use of unwarranted veracity claims. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Film, Methodology)
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255 KiB  
Article
From Clichés to Mysticism: Evolution of Religious Motives in Turkish Cinema
by Hülya Önal
Religions 2014, 5(1), 199-218; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5010199 - 3 Mar 2014
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7883
Abstract
As an art form, an academic discipline and an ideological instrument that finds a place in cultural studies and social sciences, film plays a significant role both in the creation and as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced and [...] Read more.
As an art form, an academic discipline and an ideological instrument that finds a place in cultural studies and social sciences, film plays a significant role both in the creation and as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced and sustained. Within the relationship between religion and the cinema in the Turkish context, religion has ironically become an ideological discourse contrasting with the Islamic attitude prohibiting human depiction. This paper seeks to examine the transformation of both religious and secularist clichés and stereotypes in the Turkish cinema, by means of ideological and sociological critiques of some sample films. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Film, Methodology)
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