Awesome Cinema: Religion, Art, and the Unrepresentable
FILM 318
Fall 2024
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
RELI 318 |
How does one represent the unrepresentable? In particular, how might a medium like cinema, founded on recording the visible world, move us to sense something beyond human experience? Various artistic, religious, and religiously artistic traditions use mystery, horror, surprise, disgust, and pleasure to evoke the uncanny, the majestic, the terrifying, and even the sublime in us. This class examines how filmmakers prompt audiences to feel awe (which might be awesome, awful, or both) and how that relates to religious engagement with the non-rational. Noting parallels in painting, ritual, architecture, and other means of expression, we consider how art structures emotion, perception, and cognition to exceed representation of the known. This class will examine how aliens, avatars, black holes, death, deities, demons, saints, saviors, superheroes, and nature have been conduits to that which appears to escape reason. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA FILM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: RELI151 OR FILM307 OR FILM304 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (FILM-MN)(FILM)(RELI-MN)(RELI) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (9780486272634)
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (0345404475)
Diana Eck, Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (0231112653)
Jeff Kripal, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fictions, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (022627148X)
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (0-19-500210-5)
Nathaniel Dorsky, DEVOTIONAL CINEMA, Tuumba Press; Revised edition (December 15, 2014) 978-1931157124
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly journal assignment; three essays
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Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
POI will be approved by course instructor. Please email the professors a brief (500 word max) description of your interest in this course that explains why Awe interests you. Also list other courses in FILM and REGLIGION that you have already taken. Deadline APRIL 10th at 11:59pm.
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| Instructor(s): Higgins,Scott Gottschalk,Peter Times: .M.W... 01:20PM-04:40PM; Location: CFS112; |
Permission of Instructor Required
Enrollment capacity: 18 | Permission of instructor approval will be granted by the instructor during pre-registration through the Electronic Portfolio. Click "Add to My Courses" and "To request a POI electronically, click here" to submit your request. |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 1 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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