Table Of ContentTeaching Religion and Film
TEACHINGRELIGIOUSSTUDIESSERIES
SERIESEDITOR
SusanHenking,HobartandWilliamSmithColleges
APublicationSeriesof
TheAmericanAcademyofReligion
and
OxfordUniversityPress
TEACHINGLEVI-STRAUSS
EditedbyHansH.Penner
TEACHINGISLAM
EditedbyBrannonM.Wheeler
TEACHINGFREUD
EditedbyDianeJonte-Pace
TEACHINGDURKHEIM
EditedbyTerryF.GodloveJr.
TEACHINGAFRICANAMERICANRELIGIONS
EditedbyCarolynM.JonesandTheodoreLouisTrost
TEACHINGRELIGIONANDHEALING
EditedbyLindaL.BarnesandIne´sTalamantez
TEACHINGNEWRELIGIOUSMOVEMENTS
EditedbyDavidG.Bromley
TEACHINGRITUAL
EditedbyCatherineBell
TEACHINGCONFUCIANISM
JeffreyL.Richey
Teaching Religion
and Film
edited by
gregory j. watkins
1
2008
3
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Teachingreligionandfilm/editedbyGregoryJ.Watkins.
p.cm.—(Teachingreligiousstudies)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-19-533598-9
1. Motionpictures—Religiousaspects.
2. Motionpictures—Moralandethicalaspects.
3. Religion—Studyandteaching. I. Watkins,GregoryJ.
PN1995.5.T372008
791.43'682—dc22 2007040450
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PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
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The manuscript for this volume happened to be completed
a couple of days after the death of Ingmar Bergman. A
classroom screening of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal my
freshman year of college had a profound impact on me.
Having come to college from a small farming town in
Idaho, I had no idea such a movie was possible. My now
deep and abiding interest in the connection between re-
ligion and film started with that screening. I dedicate this
volume to the memory of Ingmar Bergman.
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Preface
This project was inspired by a suggestion from Diane Jonte-Pace,
whom I would like to thank.I had just been hired to teach aclass
on religion and film at Santa Clara University. Fresh from the pub-
licationof her own volume in the AAR TeachingSeries,Teaching
Freud, Jonte-Pace encouraged me to considerdoing the same for re-
ligionandfilm.Theideawasslowtotakehold.Iwasonlystartingto
understand how to tackletheintersection between religion—that di-
verse andcomplicated area ofhuman cultureand experience—and
theextremelypowerfulmediumoffilm.Butbywayoftheclassroom
(andwith thanks to my many curious and thoughtful students at
SantaClara and Stanford) I quickly began to see theintellectual and
pedagogical promise ofbringingreligion andfilm together. Part of
thatpromisecomesfromthefactthatwe,asascholarlycommunity,
are just beginning to discoverthe many ways we can investigate
andteachthisintersection.Indeed,partoftheenjoymentofteaching
this material isthatour challengesas scholars can be sharedin the
classroom—thestudentscanplayaroleintheinvestigationbytelling
us who they are as movie viewers and what they findthemselves
thinkingand feeling whenthey watch amovie.
However, I also learned that very little material was available
on thepedagogical challengesin the religion and film classroom.
Finally, with Jonte-Pace’sinvitation in mind, Itested thewaters by
askingafew well-known names inthefield (whom Idid notknow
personally)whethertheywouldbeinterestedincontributingtosucha
volume.From thevery start, thecontributors to thisbook accepted
the invitation enthusiastically—and I thank them for the hardwork
they putinto thiswonderful collection of essays. Iwouldalso like
to thankSusan Henking,the AAR TeachingSeries editor, for her
viii preface
friendlyandinformativesupportthroughoutthisprocess,fromthenumerous
proposal drafts to final OUP approval, as well as Cynthia Read and Meechal
Hoffman at Oxford University Press for their patient guidance during the
publication process. Finally, I would like to thank Carol Hoke for such ex-
cellent work in the editing of the manuscript, editing which so many of the
contributors to thisvolumewent out of their way to praise.
Contents
Contributors,xi
Introduction:Teaching Religionand Film
Gregory J.Watkins, 3
PART I EstablishingShot: Viewing theField of Religion and Film
1. WhatAreWe TeachingWhenWe Teach ‘‘Religionand Film’’?
William L.Blizek and Michele Desmarais, 17
2. TeachingReligion andFilm: A Fourth Approach
Conrad Ostwalt, 35
PART II Filmand theTeaching of Religious Traditions
3. Teaching Biblical Tourism:How Sword-and-Sandal Films
Clouded My Vision
Alice Bach,57
4. Designing aCourseon Religion andCinema in India
Gayatri Chatterjee, 77
5. Buddhism, Film, and Religious Knowing: Challengingthe
Literary Approachto Film
Francisca Cho, 117
6. ThePedagogical Challenges of FindingChristFigures in Film
Christopher Deacy, 129
7. Film and theIntroduction to Islam Course
Amir Hussain,141
Description:In a culture increasingly focused on visual media, students have learned not only to embrace multimedia presentations in the classroom, but to expect them. Such expectations are perhaps more prevalent in a field as dynamic and cross-disciplinary as religious studies, but the practice nevertheless po
