Religion, Film, and Spirituality (RS-531)

Course Details:

This course explores some of the variety of human religious themes and topics as expressed in film format, emphasizing such themes as paradox, irony, pluralism, and religious identity. The course presents and discusses a series of “religious films” from around the world.

One of the questions raised in this course is “What makes a film religious?” Is it a particular religious content, such as a biblical narrative, a translation of a Quranic topos to another time or place, a crisis of faith, the life/lives of religious practitioners? Or is it a film that raises the kinds of religious and moral questions that everyday life tacitly poses. A wide range of questions will be considered: questions about meaning, origins, endings, otherness, suffering, theodicy, the human condition, ethics; boundaries between sacred/profane, religious/secular, divine/human, human/animal, self/other, inside/outside, necessity/chance, nature/culture, viewed/viewer, subject/object, individual/community, and other non-homological oppositions are affectively, cognitively and/or practically negotiated and determined; questions about how humans respond and act in keeping with their religious beliefs, values, and rituals.

The student will come to appreciate the variety and complexity of existential, moral, spiritual, and religious themes imbue the life of homo religiosus.

Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS - Ministerial Studies: Beliefs and Practices
MAIRS - Interreligious Studies: Elective

Instructor(s):

• Hossein Kamaly

Course Downloads:

• Syllabus - Summer 2022