Publications
Now showing items 1-40 of 152
"I Sing the body electric". Body, Voice, Technology and Religion
(2016)
In his controversial poem “I Sing the Body Electric”, Walt Whitman glorified the human body in all its forms. The world according to Whitman is physical and sensual. Bodies are our fundamental way of being – being in the ...
Science-Fiction Movies and Religion
(2020)
In science fiction films, we explore remote universes and use yet unknown technologies – the world as we know it is left behind. But although the technical devices in these films are impressive and the science advances in ...
Religion and Popular Music
(2020)
The interactions between popular music and religion are manyfold and highly complex. Popular music as an important part of popular culture is a means of communication. Music can transmit not only emotions and a sense of ...
Thinking Methods in Media and Religion
(2015)
Inspired by a workshop held at the University of Zurich in November 2014, we inaugurate the Journal for Religion, Film and Media (JRFM) with a special issue dedicated to methodology. The field of media and religion is ...
Trauma, Memory and Religion
(2018)
How can we screen trauma? This question might lead the perception of documentary films about atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries, like S21 THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE (Rithy Panh, CAMB/FR 2003) about Cambodia, ...
Understanding Jesus in the Early Modern Period and Beyond. Across Text and Other Media
(2019)
This thematic issue seeks to provide a more nuanced and more complicated history of how historical narratives about the life of Jesus were produced and circulated in European culture. The focus on media is one of the most ...
Using Media in Religious Studies. Strategies of Representing Religion in Scholarly Approaches
(2017)
Compared to the broad and well established field of research on media within religions, the usage of media for representing religion in scholarly work – text, image, sound, material, speech, film etc. – is a rather neglected ...
Constructing Space, Changing Reality of Israel through Film
(2019)
This paper investigates the ways in which filmmakers through cinematic space frame reality, mediating the issues of conflict and reconciliation, religion and identity(ies) within Israel. Cinematic space depicts and expresses ...
Bulletproof Love: Luke Cage (2016) and Religion
(2017)
There are many ways to think about religion and popular culture. One method is to ask where and when we see what might be commonly understood as “religious tradition(s)” explicitly on display. Another is to think about ...
Bridal mysticism, virtual marriage and masculinity in the Moravian hymnbook “Kleines Brüdergesangbuch”
(2018)
This article discusses the connection of virtual interaction, masculinity and bridal mysticism in the Moravian hymnbook "Kleines Brüdergesangbuch" (1754). Hereto, the motifs inherent in the hymnbook are examined according ...
Bridging Real and Virtual: A Spiritual Challenge
(2017)
The question of how to bridge virtuality and reality intensified in 2016 with the release of several consumer products. The article begins by reviewing two anxieties about virtual reality raised at a 1999 conference. To ...
Revisiting the Relevance of Conceptualism of Godard’s film
(2018)
Jean-Luc Godard’s filmmaking is analyzed as a conceptual art, as in agreement with his most accomplished role as a film critic, not a classical filmmaker. In his 1970 manifesto, Godard argues that 1) we must make political ...
The soundscape of Pasolini’S GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
(2019)
IL VANGELO SECONDO MATTEO (1964), by the Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, is one of the most interesting and widely acclaimed film representations of the life of Jesus. Its reception in the Catholic world has ...
Marriage and its representations in Classical Hollywood Comedy (1934-1945). Stanley Cavell, the concept of skepticism and Kierkegaard's legacy
(2018)
This article explores the questions of marriage and divorce as discussed by Stanley Cavell in his study of Classical Hollywood comedies, dubbing what he considered as a popular subgenre of the American comedy of the thirties ...
The Problem of Evil in DC Universe Animated Movies, 2007–2016. DC Multiverse, an Ironic Illustration of Leibniz’s Theodicy?
(2017)
This article explores the question of evil and its metaphysical and moral implications in a series of animated movie adaptations of the DC Universe produced since 2006. The contemporary evolution of the medium, called the ...
The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Early Cinema: A Complicated Relationship
(2019)
When at the onset of the twentieth century, the influential German theologian Albert Schweitzer published a historiographical account of the ‘historical Jesus’, a discrete number of silent films devoted to the life and ...
Postlude. “And God Is Never Far Away”. Or the Sum of this Issue
(2020)
This Postlude or Epilogue works as a summary of the issues insights and opens a new perspective at the end.
(Re)Making a Difference
(2015)
This article presents and discusses how mediatisation as a theory can be used to analyse two commercial videos, one promoting the organisation Catholics Come Home and the other Coca Cola. A core question in the current ...
Act Two. What Makes Popular Christian Music “Popular”?. A Comparison Between Current US-American Contemporary Christian Music and German Popular Christian Music Using the Examples of Lauren Daigle and Koenige & Priester
(2020)
The article discusses the question “What makes Popular Christian Music ‘popular’?” by applying different (competing) concepts of the term “popular” so as to showcase by which criteria Popular Christian Music (labelled as ...
Act Three. Heavy Metal Bricolage. Religious Imagery and “Religionized” Visual Language in Music Videos
(2020)
Popular music’s use of visual media makes its listeners also its viewers. From concert posters, tickets stubs and stage design to music videos, CD covers and clothes, material visual products are utilized by bands and fans ...
Act One. Comfort the Waste Places, Defend the Violated Earth. An Ecofeminist Reading of Isaiah 51:1-52:6 and Tracy Chapman's "The Rape of the World".
(2020)
This paper compares the personification of Zion in Isaiah 51:1–52:6 as a mother and daughter with Tracy Chapman's 1995 song "The rape of the world" where the earth is portrayed as mother. I will explore the use of rape ...
Anatomy of a Wedding: Examining Religiosity, Feminism, and Weddings in GREY’S ANATOMY
(2018)
Medical drama "Grey’s Anatomy" features weddings as pivotal life events, with 14 unions portrayed over the program’s 13 seasons on ABC. This paper is a synthetic approach combining communication, gender studies, and rigorous ...
Apocalypse as critical dystopia in modern popular music
(2019)
The last book of the New Testament has inspired countless narratives and cultural productions. In the realm of popular music the Apocalypse was embraced as synonymous of imminent catastrophe, generating a dystopian discourse. ...
Approaching Religious Symbols in the Public Space: Contemporary Art and Museums as Places of Negotiation?
(2015)
This essay responds to Sigrid Schade’s contribution by outlining the multilayered meaning-making processes deployed by the use of religious symbolism in visual culture. Referring in a concise way to a selected example of ...
Between Erudition and Faith. Jean-Jacques Chifflet’s Tract on the Shroud of Besançon (1624)
(2019)
The shroud of Besançon, a large cloth considered being a precious relic, an “imprint” left by Christ’s body on his burial linen, knew a period of intense veneration and public debate from the early 16th century to the end ...
The Banality of Ghosts. Searching for Humanness with Joshua Oppenheimer in THE ACT OF KILLING
(2018)
In The Act of Killing, (Joshua Oppenheimer, ID, DK 2012), Joshua Oppenheimer searches for humanness by assessing the rituals, routines and grammar of former perpetrators who played a role during the 1965/6 genocide in ...
The Body and Voice of God in the Hebrew Bible
(2016)
In both Judaism and Christianity the question as to whether God has a body is sensitive and contested terrain. The answer now tends to be ‘no’ and yet the most straightforward interpretation of numerous Hebrew Bible passages ...
Biblical Narratives in INTERSTELLAR (US/GB 2014)
(2020)
The present paper examines the presence of biblical narratives and myths in contemporary cultural productions based on an analysis of the science fiction film Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, US 2014). Interstellar follows ...
Book Review. Elisha McIntyre, Religious Humor in Evangelical Christian and Mormon Culture
(2020)
At first sight one might think that religion and humor contradict each other or at least are not a fruitful pair. The study Religious Humor in Evangelical Christian and Mormon Culture by Elisha McIntyre, an Australian ...
Beyond Cinematic Stereotypes: Using Religion to Gender Film Characters in Alternative Ways
(2016)
In films, religious characters are often gendered in quite traditional ways, but there are some notable exceptions. This article discusses two Scandinavian films that partly break this mold. The analysis illustrates how ...