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African American Studies Commons™

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Journal of Religion & Film

Articles 1 - 22 of 22

Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Cinema, Black Suffering, And Theodicy: Modern God, Terry Lindvall Apr 2024

Cinema, Black Suffering, And Theodicy: Modern God, Terry Lindvall

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Shayne Lee, Cinema, Black Suffering, and Theodicy: Modern God (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022).

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Exhibiting Forgiveness, John C. Lyden Jan 2024

Exhibiting Forgiveness, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024), directed by Titus Kaphar.

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Peele’S Black, Extraterrestrial, Naturalistic Critique Of Religion, Jonathan D. Lyonhart Oct 2023

Peele’S Black, Extraterrestrial, Naturalistic Critique Of Religion, Jonathan D. Lyonhart

Journal of Religion & Film

While Jordan Peele’s films have always held their mysteries close to the chest, they eventually granted their viewers some climactic clarity. Get Out (2017) used an 1980s style orientation video to clear up its neuroscientific twist, while Us (2019) had Lupita Nyongo’s underworld twin narratively spell out the details of the plot. Yet Nope (2022) refuses to show its hand even after the game is over, never illuminating the connection between its opening scene and the broader film, nor a myriad of other questions. As such, critics complained that it stitched together two seemingly incongruent plots without explanation; one where …

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Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart Apr 2022

Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart

Journal of Religion & Film

Black Panther (2018) not only heralded a new future for representation in big-budget films but also gave an alternative vision of the past, one which recasts the Enlightenment within an African context. By going through its technological enlightenment in isolation from Western ideals and dominance, Wakanda opens a space for reflecting on alternate ways progress can—and still might—unfold. More specifically, this alternative history creates room for reimagining how modernity—with its myriad social, scientific, and religious paradigm shifts—could have negotiated questions of race, and, in turn, how race could have informed and redirected some of the lesser impulses of modernity. Similar …

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Alice, Sheila J. Nayar Apr 2022

Alice, Sheila J. Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Alice (2022), directed by Krystin Ver Linden.

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Descendant, Sheila J. Nayar Feb 2022

Descendant, Sheila J. Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Descendant (2022), directed by Margaret Brown.

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Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris Oct 2021

Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris

Journal of Religion & Film

The novel Coronavirus is not only exposing old patterns of racism and systemic inequalities, but deepening them as well. The notion of blindspotting, as described in the film by the same name, is used to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the “spiritual emergency” or crisis of racism in America. "Blindspotting" is an image or situation that can be interpreted in two ways but is understood by some in only one way, thereby producing a blind spot. In 2020 and 2021, we see segments of American society, from politics to white Christian nationalism, upholding a sacred canopy of exceptionalism by …

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Who We Are: A Chronicle Of Racism In America, John C. Lyden Apr 2021

Who We Are: A Chronicle Of Racism In America, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (2021), directed by Emily Kunstler.

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The Sleeping Negro, William L. Blizek Apr 2021

The Sleeping Negro, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a review of The Sleeping Negro (2021), directed by Skinner Meyers.

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Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality In American Cinema, Jessica Knippel Oct 2020

Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality In American Cinema, Jessica Knippel

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Kameelah L. Martin, Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality in American Cinema.

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Burden, John C. Lyden Mar 2020

Burden, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Burden (2020) directed by Andrew Heckler.

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Run Sweetheart Run, Jodi Mcdavid Jan 2020

Run Sweetheart Run, Jodi Mcdavid

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Run Sweetheart Run (2020) directed by Shana Feste.

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Blackkklansman, William L. Blizek Nov 2018

Blackkklansman, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of BlacKkKlansman (2018), directed by Spike Lee.

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“Hi Auntie”: A Paradox Of Hip Hop Socio-Political Resistance In Killmonger, Daniel White Hodge Mar 2018

“Hi Auntie”: A Paradox Of Hip Hop Socio-Political Resistance In Killmonger, Daniel White Hodge

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

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Racism And Capitalism In Black Panther, Kyle Derkson Mar 2018

Racism And Capitalism In Black Panther, Kyle Derkson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

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The Ancestral Lands Of Black Panther And Killmonger Unburied, A. David Lewis Mar 2018

The Ancestral Lands Of Black Panther And Killmonger Unburied, A. David Lewis

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

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Interview With Carlton Pearson, John C. Lyden Mar 2018

Interview With Carlton Pearson, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

Editor John Lyden had the opportunity for a conversation with Rev. Carlton Pearson, the subject of the Netflix film Come Sunday which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2018. They discussed Pearson's theology of inclusion and what led him to it.

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Lazercism, Rubina Ramji Jan 2018

Lazercism, Rubina Ramji

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of LaZercism (2018), dir. Shaka King.

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Monsters And Men, William L. Blizek Jan 2018

Monsters And Men, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Monsters and Men (2018), directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.

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Man On Fire, William L. Blizek Jan 2018

Man On Fire, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Man on Fire (2018) directed by Joel Fendelman.

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"I Do Feel The Fire!": The Transformations Of Prison-Based Black Male Converts To Islam In South Central, Malcolm X, And Oz, Kameron J. Copeland Apr 2017

"I Do Feel The Fire!": The Transformations Of Prison-Based Black Male Converts To Islam In South Central, Malcolm X, And Oz, Kameron J. Copeland

Journal of Religion & Film

Historically, imprisoned Black male converts to Islam have been known for their narratives of redemption and struggles for religious freedom behind bars. While Islam possesses a strong visible presence throughout predominately Black areas of inner cities, it has become a natural feature of Black popular culture in mediums such as hip-hop, film, and literature. By the 1990s, the portrayal of Islamic conversions yielding Malcolm X-style transformations among young Black men, who formerly embodied self-destructiveness, were visible in films featuring Black male protagonists. The prison-based transformations typically involved highly influential Black Muslim leaders improving the social conditions of the inmate, the …

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The Butler, Carol Miles Oct 2013

The Butler, Carol Miles

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels.

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