Books, Articles, Reviews, & Teaching

Books:

Religion and Film studies have become increasingly important and of interest to scholars, students, and the general public. This page offers some links to the work of S. Brent Plate on the topic.

Essays and Reviews:

1. ✤"There Will be a Nation" (Review of There Will be Blood) at Religion Dispatches
   

2. ✤"Letting Jesus and Buddha Dance Together" (review of Eve and the Fire Horse), in The Revealer
   

3. ✤"Watching Jesus Films for Lent," in The Revealer
   

4. ✤"Chronicling C.S. Lewis: Marketing and Mythology," in The Revealer
   

5. ✤"In the Footsteps of Rocky," in The Revealer
   

6. ✤Reviews at Journal of Religion and Film, 1999-2004
   

Scholarly Articles:

1. ✤"Religious Cinematics: The Immediate Body in the Media of Film," Postscripts 1.2-3 (2006): 257-273
   

2. ✤"The Footprints of Film: After Images of Religion in American Space and Time," in Faith in America, volume 3. Edited by Charles Lippy (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006): 101-118
   

3. ✤"Hospitable Vision: Some Notes on the Ethics of Seeing Film" (co-written with Margaret R. Miles), Cross Currents 54.1 (2004): 22-31
   

4. ✤"The Re-creation of the World: Filming Faith," Dialog: A Journal of Theology 42.2 (2003): 155-160
   

5. ✤"Between Cinema and a Hard Place: Gary Hill's Video Art Between Words and Images," Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 45.1 (2003): 109-129
   

6. ✤"Seeing Beyond the End of the World in Strange Days and Until the End of the World," (with Tod Linafelt) The Journal of Religion and Film 7.1 (2003)
   

7. ✤"When Your Family is Other, and the Other Your Family: Freedom and Obligation in Frank Capra's You Can't Take it With You," (with Pat Caruso) in Imag(in)ing Otherness, Plate and Jasper, eds. (Oxford: AAR-Oxford University Press, 1999): 99-119
   

8. ✤"Religion/Literature/Film: Toward a Religious Visuality of Film," Literature and Theology 12.2 (1998): 16-38
   

9. ✤"Filmmaking and Worldmaking: Constructing Time and Space in Ritual, Myth, and Film," in Teaching Religion and Film, Greg Watkins, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming; part of the Teaching Religious Studies Series)
   

Quotes in the Media on Religion and Film:

1. ✤Interview with Claire Hoffman in Washington Post blog "Under God"
   

2. ✤"The Best Christmas Movies," Anniston Star, Brett Buckner (23 Dec 2007)
   

3. ✤"Religion at the Movies," Religion & Ethics Newsweekly online companion, Chris Herlinger (3 March 2006)
   

4. ✤"In 'Narnia,' Tycoon Seeks Blockbuster With a Message," Los Angeles Times, Claudia Eller (Front page story, 5 Dec 2005); Reprinted in Chicago Tribune and other papers
   

5. ✤"Pastors lead flocks through the wardrobe: Churches and Disney see Narnia as a land of opportunity," Houston Chronicle, Barbara Karkabi and Louis B. Parks (5 Dec 2005)
   

6. ✤"Disney taps niche markets for Narnia promotion," Reuters News Service, Gina Keating (2 Dec 2005); picked up by press around the world
   

7. ✤"Proponents say film 'powerful,' and can't be watched passively," Houston Chronicle, Richard Vara (27 August 2004)
   

8. ✤"Did The Passion Fulfill Its Promise?" Beliefnet.com, Kimberly Winston (Sept 2004) {Winner of the 2005 AAR Award for Best In-Depth Coverage of Religion}
   

9. ✤"(Don't) Give Me that Old-Time Religion," Chronicle of Higher Education, Don Troop (19 Nov 2004)
   

10. ✤"Will a recut Passion still stir debate?" Houston Chronicle, Jeannie Kever (14 March 2005)