IN17 Reel Presence: Explorations in Liturgy and Film

Teresa Berger, Yale Institute of Sacred Music/Yale Divinity School

9:00 - 11:30 am , June 2 - 6

$400

Ours is an intensely visual culture and age, and film plays an important role in the development of the cultural imagination as well as our own inner lives.  Even the most popular films function not only as “entertainment” but as significant “meaning-makers” for and in contemporary culture.  Faith communities cannot and in fact do not stand apart from this (witness but the frequency with which films turn up in homilies).  Interestingly, Christian liturgy and religious ritual are present in many contemporary films as subtexts.  It is these “reel presences” that are the subject matter of this course.

This course, then, will address the subject of Christian liturgy and religious ritual as these come to be constructed in the medium of contemporary films.  Films, in other words, as “religiously pertinent texts” (Irena S. M. Makarushka) become required reading in this course.  The films are paired with readings from the field of liturgical studies that illumine the topic embedded in the film’s (sub)text on liturgy. Together, the films and readings open a space for dialogue on contemporary concerns and insights about the meaning of liturgy.

Book List

Syllabus

Questions? Call 203-432-6550