DRAFT / april 2015
MEDIA + RELIGION
[RLST S300]
Thomas Hart Benton, detail from America Today mural (1930-31)
Instructor / Kati Curts
Email / kati.curts@yale.edu
Office Hours / Wed. 4:30-5:30 or by appt, location TBD
COURSE DESCRIPTION + GOALS
In a world of apparent media omnipresence—tweets and text messages, daily talking points and celebrity
tabloids, stock tickers, movie trailers, and 24-hour talking heads—transmissions of our quickly receding
present seem to be all around us. This course considers how our media present, represent, produce, shape,
and remake what we understand “religion” to be. We will also ask how our particular relationships to “the
media”—as simultaneously producers and consumers, in everyday life and as extraordinary Event—might be
described as “religious.” We will examine particular images and objects, humans and things, as religious
media and formatting media of religion. Readings are drawn from an intentionally diverse corpus, but we
focus our efforts through specific case studies of particular media products and processes—paper, writing, and
words; screens and performative scenes; soundscapes; and the body and the disembodied.
DRAFT / april 2015
This seminar takes a global approach—from the U.S. to Ghana, China, Brazil, and Egypt—to investigate how
different cultures, social groups, and individuals understand, mediate, and revise what “religion” is, while also
remaining attentive to the particularly “western” and/or “American” idioms by which “the religious” is
represented in much mass media today. Topics of study include devotional diaries and calligraphy, the
printing press and book publications, scrapbooks, biblical epics, cable television, Hollywood celebrities,
evangelical revivals, spirit photography, fasting, footbinding, Star Trek fans, prisons, radio shows, websites,
and internet blogs. We will ask how religion is plotted, imagined, and reshaped in and through these
historical and contemporary actors and settings.
The aims and objectives of the course are: (1) to appreciate and reconsider how assumptions about “religion”
are rendered, inscribed, entombed, consumed, and interwoven in images, in objects, in bodies, in buildings,
in behaviors, in stories, and in spaces; (2) to develop new understandings of our own embeddedness in the
media of our past and present, and to refine our orientation and attitude toward media’s formatting
maneuvers; (3) to practice active and engaged reading, watching, and discussion; (4) to develop skills in the
rigors of imaginative critique as one’s own creative—perhaps even “religious”—mediation.
ASSIGNMENTS + EVALUATION
Grades for the course will be based on participation (10%), media nominations and discussion questions
(10%), reading journal entries (40%), and two short essays (40% total). Please submit all assignments in hard
copy on the due date. Late submissions will be marked down 1/3 of a grade per day late.
Attendance + Participation (10%) - Participation grades are based on your active engagement in
discussion. We will discuss further what this means on the first day of the course. Assigned reading/viewing
must be completed before class on the date assigned. It should be noted that your participation grade also
assumes regular and punctual attendance each week. Summer courses are, by design, extremely intensive. So,
you are required to attend every class. If you have any concerns about attendance, you must consult with me
immediately and in advance. (Note: there are no dean’s excuses for summer session courses.) Repeatedly
arriving late or leaving early will amount to an unexcused absence, which will negatively affect your grade. Per
Yale summer session policies and regulations: “nonattendance or excessive absences may result in a student
being placed on cut restriction and possibly removed from the course.”
Media Nominations + Discussion Questions (10%) - During the second class meeting (July 8),
students will sign up for one day over the course of the session to be responsible for nominating a piece of
media (song, video clip, cartoon, photograph, etc) to be distributed or shown at the beginning of class in a
kind of show-and-tell format. Students will be asked in class to explain briefly (less than 5 minutes) why they
selected the piece of media presented. Media nominations are to engage the themes or topics of discussion as
drawn from that day’s assigned materials, and must be emailed to the instructor by 3:00 p.m. the day before
the meeting, along with three (3) discussion questions. Nominated media selections should help introduce
and supplement the material assigned for the week and act as a comparative point of departure for our
ensuing discussion together. They also offer practice in selecting and analyzing media, a task that you will
return to in your second essay assignment.
Reading Journal (40%) – 1-2 page each –You are responsible for keeping a regular, weekly journal of
your reflections and responses to assigned materials over the course of the semester, beginning with our
second meeting (July 10). You will hand in a copy of your entries at the end of each Wednesday meeting
DRAFT / april 2015
(starting July 15). The aim is to develop a kind of ritual of labor – of reading, reflecting, synthesizing, and
thinking critically and creatively about the assigned texts. Journals are intended to assist you in processes of
active reading/viewing and to help prepare you for class discussion. You must not take this task lightly. Entries
can necessarily take many forms, but all should, in some way, be a set of notes and synthesized reflections
that record your unique observations, guesses, and questions about the week’s readings and the arguments
considered therein. Do not just riff on your favorite tv show or some news article trending that day. You must
engage the assigned readings directly, but you are also most welcome to reflect briefly on how assigned
material relates to other media you encounter and create in your daily life and labors.
Essay #1, Critical Review (15%) – 750 words – You will write a review of either a novel, tv mini-series,
or film from the short list provided by the instructor (to be distributed in class on July 6). Be sure to allow
yourself sufficient time to read or watch the document you select. Then, write a short review essay of it. Your
review must do three things: (1) briefly describe/summarize the text or film, (2) consider how it portrays
religion and/or the media and to what effect, and (3) assess and evaluate it in your own terms. We will talk
more about this assignment in class, but remember: writing a short but substantive critique is often much
more time consuming than writing a longer, drafty summary review. Make sure you give yourself enough time
to produce the former. Essay #1 due: July 22.
Essay #2, Media Analysis (25%) – 5-6 pages – You will identify and nominate one piece of media
(contemporary or historical; text, image, artifact, or performance) and write an analysis of the ways it mediates
religion. The possibilities are numerous and the prompt here is purposefully broad to allow you to follow
your own interests. For instance, this could be an analysis of an art piece at the Yale Art Gallery or of a
performance at the theater. You could analyze a television episode or a song. So too you could consider any
number of historical documents or material objects (broadside, postcard, stationary, newspaper, photograph,
etc) in any one of the many archives at Yale (Haas Arts Library, Beinecke, Sterling MssA, Medical Historical,
Yale Divinity, etc.) or elsewhere. The point is to spend some time doing research, find a document, artifact,
or performance that has not been assigned or discussed elsewhere during the course, and then analyze it
carefully, critically, and creatively. We will discuss the assignment more thoroughly in class. However, I also
invite you to find a time to talk with me about particular areas of interest as you begin your selection process
(this is what office hours are great for!). Proposal due: July 29. Essay #2 due: Aug 5.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
To engage in academic work is to join a long and ongoing conversation. It is your privilege and responsibility
to do so with critical, sometimes antagonistic, but always respectful consideration and integrity. Putting your
ideas and arguments into productive conversation with someone else’s work shows critical acumen. Claiming
ownership over someone else’s work or words does the opposite. This is not simply a question of academic
disciplinary action (though it is that, too); it also compromises your own intellectual training. It may happen
most frequently in times of great stress, but there are much more productive ways to manage the pressures of
academic life. Learning to properly and fruitfully engage with and acknowledge sources is a crucial part of the
collegiate enterprise. For these and other reasons, plagiarism absolutely will not be tolerated. You are
expected to be familiar with Yale University’s policies on inadequate acknowledgement of sources
(plagiarism). [http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/cheating-plagiarism-and-documentation] For further
explanation, you can also consult the Yale College Writing Center: http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/usingsources. I strongly encourage you to carefully review these resources. And if you still have questions, ask!
DRAFT / april 2015
REQUIRED TEXTS
All course readings are available for download on Classes V2. You should download and have them on hand
during class—either printed in hard copy or on your computer—for reference and discussion.
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1: INTRODUCING, DEFINING, THEORIZING
M eeting #1/ M onday (July 6): introducing – the course, the terms
In-class handouts: Wikipedia – “media” and “religion”
In-class viewing: PBS’s God in America excerpts; Comedy Central’s Drunk History clips
M eeting #2/ W ednesday (July 8): defining, theorizing - &/in/as/is
“Medium,” Brigit Meyer, Material Religion, 59-64
“Religion,” Willi Braun, Guide to the Study of Religion, pp. 3-18
“Definition,” William Arnal, Guide to the Study of Religion, pp. 21-33
“Religion is Media,” Angela Zito, The Revealer, http://therevealer.org/archives/2853
WEEK 2: PAPER + WRITING + WORDS
M eeting #3/ M onday (July 13): writing reformation, inscribing character(s)
David Tracy, “Writing,” Critical Terms for Religious Studies, pp. 383-394
S. Brent Plate, “Words,” Material Religion, pp. 157-162
Catherine Brekus, “Writing as a Protestant Practice: Devotional Diaries in Early New England,” Practicing Protestants,
pp. 19-34
Gregory P.A. Levine, “The Faltering Brush: Material, Sensory Trace, and Nonduality in Chan/Zen Buddhist Death
Verse Calligraphies,” Sensational Religion, pp. 561-579
M eeting #4/ W ednesday (July 15): imprinting aura, authorizing memory
David Morgan, “The Aura of Print,” The Lure of Images, pp. 7-36
Jeremny Stolow, “Holy Pleather: Materializing Authority in Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Publishing,” Material
Religion, pp. 316-333
Anne Blue Wills, “Mourning Becomes Hers: Women, Tradition, and Memory Albums,” Religion and American
Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 20.1 (2010): 93-121
**SUBMIT journal entries (on assigned materials for meetings #2-4)**
DRAFT / april 2015
WEEK 3: SCREENS + SCENES
M eeting #5/ M onday (July 20): epic orientalism
Melani McAlister, “‘Benevolent Supremacy’: The Biblical Epic at the Dawn of the American Century, 1947-1960,” Epic
Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945, pp. 43-83
Jane Iwamura, “The Monk Goes Hollywood / Kung Fu,” Virtual Orientalism, pp. 111-157
watch either The Ten Commandments (1956) or Ben-Hur (1959) – available at Yale Film Study Center
M eeting #6/ W ednesday (July 22): corporate prosperity, popular fandom
Birgit Meyer, “Pentecostalism, Prosperity, and Popular Cinema in Ghana,” Representing Religion in World Cinema,
pp. 121-138
Kathryn Lofton, “Celebrity Spirit: The Incorporation of Your Best Life,” Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, pp. 51-81
Michael Jindra, “It’s about Faith in Our Future: Star Trek Fandom as Cultural Religion,” Religion and Popular Culture
in America, pp. 159-173
**SUBMIT journal entries (on assigned materials for meetings #5-6)**
**Essay #1 – Critical Review – DUE in class**
WEEK 4: BODIES + THE DISEMBODIED
M eeting #7/ M onday (July 27): haptics, hysterics & the haunted
David Chidester, “Embodied Religion,” Authentic Fakes, pp. 71-90
Ann Taves, “Shouting Methodists,” Fits, Trances, and Visions, pp. 76-118
Paul Christopher Johnson, “Objects of Possession: Photography, Spirits, and the Entangled Arts of Appearance,”
Sensational Religion, pp. 25-46
M eeting #8/ W ednesday (July 29): to discipline & punish
Marie Griffith, “Don’t Eat That: The Erotics of Abstinence in American Christianity,” Gastronomica 1.4 (2001): 36-47
Angela Zito, “Secularizing the Pain of Footbinding in China: Missionary and Medical Stagings of the Universal Body,”
Secularisms, pp. 205-225
John Lardas Modern, “Ghosts of Sing Sing, or the Metaphysics of Secularism,” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 75.3 (2007): 615-650
**SUBMIT journal entries (on assigned materials for meetings #7-8)**
** Proposal for Essay #2 - Media Analysis – DUE in class**
DRAFT / april 2015
WEEK 5: SOUNDSCAPES + SCHOLARSHIP
M eeting #9/ M onday (Aug 3): hearing differently
Leigh Schmidt, “From Demon Possession to Magic Show: Ventriloquism, Religion, and the Enlightenment,” Church
History 67.2 (1998): 274-304
Isaac Weiner, “Sonic Differences: Listening to the Adhan in a Pluralistic America,” Sensational Religion, pp. 225-230
Charles Hirschkind, “Cassette Ethics: Public Piety and Popular Media in Egypt,” Religion, Media, and the Public
Sphere, pp. 29-51
Lerone A. Martin, excerpts from Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Shaping of Modern African American
Religion, pp. 1-10, 32-61
M eeting #10/ W ednesday (Aug 5): religion and/as m edia
Jeremy Stolow, “Religion and/as Media,” Theory, Culture & Society, pp. 119-145
read, poke around, browse, and otherwise explore at least two (2) of the following sites: Immanent Frame, Religion
Dispatches, The Revealer, Killing the Buddha, Frequencies, Religious Studies Project, New Books in Religion, MRB
radio archive of Directions in the Study of Religion, and/or Religion in American History blog
**SUBMIT journal entries (on assigned materials for meetings #9-10)**
**Essay #2 – Media Analysis – DUE in class**