Tag: art
Ethnographic Filmmaking and the Scientific Study of Religion
What happens when a social scientist uses a camera as a tool in ethnographic fieldwork? For a decade prior to pursuing graduate school, I worked as a composer, film editor and documentary filmmaker. W... Read More
Art and Soul?
The world is a hard place. Too many hours in front of the 24-hour News Networks and one can feel desolate in the face of Sisyphean problems in the world. ISIS in Iraq. Boko Haram in Nigeria. The Lordâ... Read More
Unrateable Terrors
I help teach a university course on The Holocaust in Historical Context. It is, it should be, impossible to remain unaffected by immersive study of Western Antisemitism and how religious, economic, po... Read More
Jesus and the Moneychangers in the Scrovegni Chapel
In the summertime I visited Padua and went to the Scrovegni Chapel, dated 1305. In the past 40 years the frescos have begun to crumble, and curators have researched atmospheric problems in order to co... Read More
Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 3
(This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2) OFFENSE Jesus was most recently portrayed in celluloid form by a Portuguese model with great hair. I’m talking about The Bible, a miniserie... Read More
Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 2/3
(This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 here.) AUTHORITY There is another hot issue in a discussion about religion and the Bible: the question of who has authority over the tellin... Read More
Hillary and Michelle: Urban Dancing and the Metaphysics of the Home
“If you can’t control your own house, how will you be able to control the White House?” – Michelle Obama, 2007 presidential campaign speech The word “economy” descends from the ancient Gr... Read More
From Prejudice to Pluralism: Surfacing the Unconscious
By witnessing and transforming the most troubling parts of our religions we will transform ourselves and, in doing so, our relationship to those of other faiths. This work must begin with each of us a... Read More