Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Unit

The Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Unit invites proposals on the following topics. Please note we are committed to diversity and thus strongly encourage the use of world cinema and global visual culture products as well as the gender and ethnic diversity of participants. Additionally, we expect presenters to incorporate visual media in presentations and ask that all proposals indicate how visuals will be used. We also ask that proposals be clear about their theoretical and methodological approaches and perspectives.

2023 Themes and Topics:
 

• Kyrie, Kanye, and the visuality of sports/music (Co-Sponsorship with Critical Approaches to Hip-Hop and Religion unit)
• Individual papers, panels, or roundtables that re-consider Barbra Streisand as icon and director, including revisiting the themes of gender, religion, race, sexuality, and class in her films (potential co-sponsorship with the Queer Studies and Study of Judaism Units)

We invite proposals exploring: 

• Video Gaming and/as Pedagogy
• Borders/Borderland
• 100 Years of Disney and Warner (Co-sponsorship with History of Christianity unit)

On the centennial of the founding of Disney and Warner Bros., we invite proposals that examine the telling or narration of Christian history through film and popular culture

Book Panel

We seek creative panels focused on key scholarly monographs on the subject of religion, film, and visual culture published in 2022 or 2023. These panels can take the form of critical reviews, generative roundtables responses, prompts for further exploration, author dialogue, and more. Be sure to include a brief summary of the book and clearly delineate its significance and relevance for the study of religion, film, and visual culture. Outline how the participants will contribute to a broad conversation on the subject and advance the book's arguments and conclusions.