Cinema and Secularism

Häftad, Engelska, 2025

AvMark Cauchi,Canada) Cauchi, Mark (York University

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Cinema and Secularism is the first collection to make the relationship between cinema and secularism thematic, utilizing a number of different methodological approaches to examine their identification and differentiation across film theory, film aesthetics, film history, and throughout global cinema.The emergence of moving images and the history of cinema historically coincide with the emergence of secularism as a concept and discourse. More than historically coinciding, however, cinema and secularism would seem to have—and many contemporary theorists and critics seem to assume—a more intrinsic, almost ontological connection to each other. While early film theorists and critics explicitly addressed questions about secularism, religion, and cinema, once the study of film was professionalized and secularized in the Western academy in both film studies and religious studies, explicit and critical attention to the relationship between cinema and secularism rapidly declined. Indeed, if one canvases film scholarship today, one will find barely any works dedicated to thinking critically about the relationship between cinema and secularism. Extending the recent “secular turn” in the humanities and social sciences, Cinema and Secularism provokes critical reflection on its titular concepts. Making contributions to theory, philosophy, criticism, and history, the chapters in this pioneering volume collectively interrogate the assumption that cinema is secular, how secularism is conceived and related to cinema differently in different film cultures, and whether the world is disenchanted or enchanted in cinema. Coming from intellectually diverse backgrounds in film studies, religious studies, and philosophy, the interdisciplinary contributors to this book cover films and traditions of thought from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. In these ways, Cinema and Secularism opens new areas of inquiry in the study of film and contributes to the ongoing interrogation of secularism more broadly.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-07-24
Mått150 x 228 x 18 mm
Vikt420 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor288
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781501388842

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List of Images Acknowledgements Introduction: Screening the SecularMark Cauchi (York University, Canada)Part I: Is Cinema Secular? Genealogy, Theory, Philosophy1. Secularist Film Studies and the Occlusion of the SecularMark Cauchi (York University, Canada2. Deleuze’s “Conversion of Belief”: The Time-Image and the Disruption of Cinema’s Secularist OriginsJohn Caruana (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)3. The Secular as Sacred: Cinema and Buddhist RitualFrancisca Cho (Georgetown University, USA)Part II: Situating Secularism: Culture, Politics, and Cinema4. Ousmane Sembène’s Moolaadé: Sacred Space as Refuge and Political AgencyNikolas Kompridis (Humboldt University, Germany)5. Cinema as a Secularizing Medium in the Middle EastWalid El Khachab (York University, Canada)6. The Impossible Possible: Secularism and Hindi Popular CinemaSheila J. Nayar (University of Utah, USA)7. Observational Secular: Religion and Documentary Film in the United StatesKathryn Lofton (Yale University, USA)Part III: The Dis/enchantment of the World in Moving Images8. The Wonder of Film: Science, Magic, and the Endurance of EnchantmentCatherine Wheatley (King’s College London, UK)9. Vegetal Life, Plant-Soul: Early British Film FlowersSarah Cooper (King’s College London, UK)10. “There's a sort of evil out there”: Uncanny Secularity in Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The ReturnRobert Sinnerbrink (Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany)List of ContributorsIndex

Few books have surprised me as much as Cinema and Secularism, which very generously and precisely asks the secularists among us, of which I am one, to examine our own assumptions about what secularism is, where most of us simply accept it as an essential value, and thus, potentially, as non-secular. The range of films, nations, periods, and concepts in evidence here—not to mention the sheer quality of the writing—is seriously impressive and proof of just how much this conversation needs to happen; proof that the questions matter to everyone.