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The Return: Life After Isis, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Return: Life After ISIS (2021), directed by Alba Sotorra Clua.

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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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Revising Mary Queen Of Scots: From Protestant Persecution To Patriarchal Struggle, Jennifer M. Desilva, Emily K. Mcguire

Journal of Religion & Film

Since Mary Queen of Scots’ execution in 1587, she has become a symbol of Scottish identity, failed female leadership, and Catholic martyrdom. Throughout the twentieth century, Mary was regularly depicted on screen (Ford, 1936; Froelich, 1940; Jarrott, 1971) as a thrice-wed Catholic queen, unable to rule her country due to her feminine nature and Catholic roots. However, with the rise of third wave feminism and postfeminism in media, coupled with the increased influence of female directors and writers, Mary’s characterization has shifted from portraying female/emotional weakness and religious sacrifice to female/collaborative strength in hardship and a struggle against patriarchal prejudice. …

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No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander

Journal of Religion & Film

This article explores ways in which film expresses “internal history” in the context of Muslim cultures. As such, it enquires how film can work as both Islamic art and historical contemplation. The films discussed here, Nacer Khemir’s Wanderers in the Desert and Muhammad Rasoulof’s Iron Island, inhabit and explore the borderline between imagination and reality. The films in question offer an imaginal interspace between “modern” and “traditional” worlds. As such they open up critical perspectives on the meaning of history. What follows is a discussion of how each film offers a window onto differing perceptions of time, and what …

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Apocalypse And Eschatology In John Ford's The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), Nancy Wright

Journal of Religion & Film

John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) visualizes conventions of the apocalypse genre to represent not simply a particular historical setting, the Great Depression, but also a vision of history to be interpreted in terms of eschatology. Expressionistic photography transforms the characters’ experiences into enigmatic visions that invite and guide interpretation. A comparison of montage sequences in Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and Pare Lorentz’s The Plow That Broke The Plains (1936), a Farm Security Administration documentary, clarifies how Ford’s narrative film aligns spectators within and outside the mise-en-scène.

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Yalda, A Night For Forgiveness, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness (2019) directed by Massoud Bakhshi.

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A Hidden Life, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of A Hidden Life (2019), directed by Terrence Malick.

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Religion And Culture In Inherit The Wind, Zachary Sheldon

Journal of Religion & Film

Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind (1960) has long been considered a classic for its indictment of McCarthyism as allegorized in a dramatic treatment of the Scopes Monkey Trial. But for all its political messaging, the film is also patently up front in its treatment of religious perspectives on culture. The presence of such material may be read allegorically but may also be read in connection with the period of the film’s production, as a statement piece on religious perspectives of media such as film. This article examines the religious messaging in Inherit the Wind in conjunction with religious perspectives of …

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Myth And Monstrosity: Teaching Indigenous Films, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

The past few times that I have taught my course on religion and film I have included a number of Indigenous movies. The response from students has been entirely positive, in part because most of them have rarely encountered Indigenous cultural products of any kind, especially contemporary ones. Students also respond well to the way in which many of these films use notions of the monstrous to explore, and explode, colonial myths. Goldstone, for example, by Kamilaroi filmmaker Ivan Sen, draws on noir tropes to peel back the smiling masks of the people responsible for the mining town’s success, …

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‘I Am That Very Witch’: On The Witch, Feminism, And Not Surviving Patriarchy, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

While contemporary discussions about witchcraft include reinterpretations and feminist reclamations, early modern accusations contained no such complexity. It is this historical witch as misogynist nightmare that the film, The Witch: A New England Folktale (2015), expresses so effectively. Within the film, the very patriarchal structures that decry witchcraft – the Puritan church from which the family exiles itself, the male headship to which the parents so desperately cling, the insistence, in the face of repeated failure, on the viability of the isolated nuclear family unit – are the same structures that inevitably foreclose the options of the lead character, Thomasin.

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Representations Of Nineteenth Century Mormonism In A Mormon Maid: A Cinematic Analysis, Elisabeth Weagel

Journal of Religion & Film

During the first quarter of the 20th century there was a trend in Hollywood to make films about Mormons. Practices such as polygamy created just the kind of sensationalism that attracted filmmakers (even Thomas Edison contributed with his 1902 film A Trip to Salt Lake). Many of these were B-pictures, but the 1917 film A Mormon Maid stands out because it was produced by a major production company (Paramount) and was backed by top director Cecil B. DeMille. It is often given passing reference, but very little genuine scholarship has been done on the film. A hundred years …

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Reason (Vivek), J. Barton Scott

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Reason (Vivek) (2018), directed by Anand Patwardhan.

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The Impact Of Immigration On Cold War Modernization Efforts: A Case Study Of South Korea, Shannon Hayes

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This paper explores the intersection of American foreign and domestic policies during the Cold War. The United States sought to foster political and economic alliances in the developing world in the 1950s and 1960s by employing a new foreign policy initiative: modernization theory. Governmental officials and non-state actors carried out these policies in areas of the globe considered the most susceptible to communist influences because of cultural practices and economic realities. However, even while American policymakers sought to modernize political and economic systems, the nation’s own immigration policies may have worked against these efforts. This paper will explore the impact …

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Depictions Of Catholic And Protestant Bodies In Elizabeth (Dir. Kapur, 1998), Jennifer M. Desilva, Alison R. Orewiler

Journal of Religion & Film

This article uses the film Elizabeth (dir. Kapur, 1998) as a portal for understanding the interstices between modern and early modern conceptions of religion as it is read on the body. Elizabeth examines the period of religious and political unrest immediately before and after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), compressing the late 1550s through the early 1570s into a comprehensive statement on the relationship between the body, heresy, and corruption. This article investigates how lower body activities and functions, like dancing, sex, and defecation, were linked in both the film and early modern minds to immorality, corruption, …

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A Fight Over Souls: Documentary Films On The Rwandan Genocide With A Christian Theme, Tommy Gustafsson

Journal of Religion & Film

The 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda have spawned over 150 feature films and feature-length documentaries, making it into the second most audio-visually recreated genocide after the Holocaust. Within this large body of historical films a subgenre have emerged with a distinctive Christian theme. This article explores these Christian themed documentary films about the Rwandan genocide and positions them within a film historical perspective as well as analyzes and contextualizes them as a subgenre of films about the Rwandan genocide within films about genocide in general. Of note are how memory and historiography are used, and the links between …

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Superhero Films: A Fascist National Complex Or Exemplars Of Moral Virtue?, Chris Yogerst

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper deals with the "why" regarding our collective desire for superhero narratives. My goal is to build on the many definitions of a superhero and find a framework that we as scholars can use to evaluate how superhero films present inspirational moral virtue and not zealous nationalism of any kind. In the process I want to address the problems with some of the scholarly work done on the connection to superheroes and heroism both historically and immediately after 9/11, particularly those who have argued that American superheroism is a fascist myth, and show how the recent evolution of the …

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An Oral History Of Italian American Identity & Perception During The First Half Of The 20th Century, Joshua A. Hoxmeier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This paper will detail the experiences, perceptions, and memories of working and middle class Italian American men during the first half of the twentieth century and examine the differences between how the two World Wars and their aftermaths shaped the ethnic identity of these men. By looking at Italian American World War II veterans, I conclude the notion that Italian American inclusion was achieved through the First World War and the nationalism of the 1920s, especially the restriction of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, is not fully representative of both the realities and perceptions of a sizable number of …

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Lone Man And All My Relations, Doug Meigs

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Lone Man is the central creation figure of the Mandan, an indigenous people of present-day North Dakota. The story of Lone Man begins with the creation figure becoming self-aware on the open ocean. He creates the Earth and sets off to discover his people. Doug Meigs is writing the oral history of Robert O’Brien, a modern Mandan man living in Omaha, Nebraska, who grew up without any knowledge of tribal identity. Late in life, he would set off to learn that he was Mandan. O’Brien is still coming to terms with the meaning of that identity.

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Winnie, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Winnie (2017), directed by Pascale Lamchi.

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Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay describes the antecedents and causative forces giving rise to the birth of apocalyptic cinema in the early 20th Century and the first apocalyptic feature, Verdens Undergang (1916). Apocalyptic cinema's roots can be traced back to apocalyptic literary tradition beginning 200 BCE, New Testament apocalyptic writings, the rise of premillenialism in the mid-19th Century, 19th century apocalyptic fiction, a growing distrust in human self-determination, escalating wars and tragedies from 1880 to 1912 reaching a larger audience through a burgeoning press, horrors and disillusionment caused by the First World War, a growing belief in a dystopian future, and changes in …

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Indigenous Helpers And Renegade Invaders: Ambivalent Characters In Biblical And Cinematic Conquest Narratives, L. Daniel Hawk

Journal of Religion & Film

This article compares the role of ambiguous character types in the national narratives of biblical Israel and modern America, two nations that ground their identities in myths of conquest. The types embody the tensions and ambivalence conquest myths generate by combining the invader/indigenous binary in complementary ways. The Indigenous Helper assists the invaders and signifies the land’s acquiescence to conquest. The Renegade Invader identifies with the indigenous peoples and manifests anxiety about the threat of indigenous difference. A discussion of these types in the book of Joshua, through the stories of Rahab and Achan, establishes a point of reference by …

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Gimme Danger; Leehom Wang's Open Fire Concert Film, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a comparative film review of Gimme Danger (2016), directed by Jim Jarmusch, and Leehom Wang's Open Fire Concert Film (2016), directed by Homeboy Music, Inc.

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Dr. King And The Image Of God: A Theology Of Voting Rights In Ava Duvernay's Selma, Marcos Norris

Journal of Religion & Film

This article argues that Ava DuVernay’s 2014 film Selma develops a theology of voting rights by staging a conflict between President Lyndon B. Johnson and political activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though many reviewers fault the film for its besmirching portrayal of LBJ, DuVernay’s (mis)representations of Johnson establish a link between the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and King’s theological anthropology. In King’s view, mankind was created in the image of God, endowed with free will and the capacity to reason. The denial of Black voting rights, while literally depriving African Americans of their political agency, also represented the disavowal …

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Memoir Of Shair Mohammad Khan Kamrany, Shair Mohammad Khan Kamrany, Nake M. Kamrany, Maryam Qudrat, Saleh Mohammad Kamrany, Nazaneen Habib, Frozan Habib, Patrick Moore

Books in English

Memoir of Shair Mohammad Kamrany, who was born circa 1901-1902 in Bala Karz, Kandahar. He worked on the family farm until he was drafted into army and sent to Kabul. In the 1920s, King Amanullah Khan modernized Afghanistan, and Kamrany was one of a small group of students sent to the newly-formed USSR to learn to fly, after which he served in the first Afghan air force, including service during the 1929 insurgency which ended Amanullah Khan's reign. The memoir includes a "detailed description of the alignment and re-alignment of the various Pashtun tribes and the activities of the insurgency …

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Russia And Britain In Persia: Imperial Ambitions In Qajar Iran. By Firuz Kazemzadeh. (New York, Ny: I. B. Tauris, 2013. Pp. Xvii, 711. $85.00.), James D. Clark

History Faculty Publications

This is a reprint of the author's classic study of British and Russian policies and intervention in Iran from the 1860s to 1914. For this edition, Firuz Kazemzadeh has consulted Russian archive materials and books that became accessible after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet he maintains that those sources confirmed his earlier conclusions, and he has made no changes to this edition. The book is basically “a case study in imperialism,” tracing the steady increase in penetration that occurred, and it largely relies upon British and Russian primary sources (vii). The few Persian sources that are cited are …

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The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm

Journal of Religion & Film

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, has come to define the genre of the biblical epic. It has earned a permanent place in American culture due to its annual airing on television during the Easter and Passover holidays. Most viewers are unaware, however, that DeMille had sought to make a film that would appeal to Jews, Christians and Muslims at a time when their common Abrahamic ancestry had yet to be articulated, and interreligious dialogue was all but unheard of. To this end, Henry Noerdlinger, DeMille’s researcher for the film, consulted the Qur’an, and screenwriters incorporated Islamic …

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An Evil Threat To Marriage, Children And The Future: Queer Theory, "The Passion Of The Christ," And Evangelical Political Rhetoric, Richard Wolff

Journal of Religion & Film

This article employs queer theory to analyze Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004) for its portrayal of queer characters (Satan and Herod) in contrast with non-queer (Pilate and Claudia, Seraphia, Simon the Cyrene, and Mary, Christ’s mother), and how it depicts the former as evil and the latter as good. In particular, these contrasts involve self-indulgent or predatory sexual expression versus a healthy marital relationship, and evil versus loving influences over children, who represent hope for the future. Finally, the article looks at the film’s heavy marketing to American evangelicals and how the symbolic representations in the …

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The Binding Of Abraham: Inverting The Akedah In Fail-Safe And Wargames, Hunter B. Dukes

Journal of Religion & Film

This article draws upon Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death to trace how two exemplars of atomic bomb cinema reinterpret the Binding of Isaac (Akedah). Released during the twin peaks of Cold War tension, Fail-Safe (1964) and WarGames (1983) invert the Akedah of Genesis 22. In both films, an act of sacrificial patricide accompanies or replaces the sacrifice of an Isaac-like son. When viewed in the context of Cold War cultural politics—events such as Norman Morrison’s Abrahamic self-immolation and Kent State’s rejection of George Segal’s sacrificial memorial— the inverted Akedah emerges as …

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Crowdsourcing Digital Public History, Jason A. Heppler, Gabriel K. Wolfenstein

Criss Library Faculty Publications

The generation of communal knowledge is not a new phenomenon. In the late nineteenth century, the Oxford English Dictionary solicited volunteers to submit words and their usage for inclusion in the dictionary ( 1 ). Carl Becker, writing in 1932 on what was already an old discussion in the historical profession, noted that "if the essence of history is the memory of things said and done, then it is obvious that every normal person, Mr. Everyman, knows some history" (2). The historian Jo Guldi's work on participatory mapping shows that urban planners in the middle of the twentieth century attempted …

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With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas

Journal of Religion & Film

This article focuses on how, Beasts of the Southern Wild, represents both divergence and transgression from paradigmatic structures that determine how certain visual representations are to be used. Specifically, the cinematic detours taken by the filmmakers, Lucy Alibar and Behn Zeitlin, do not lead to alien places for most viewers; on the contrary, ancient myths, legends, heroes and prehistoric references are recalled in total isolation from current social and political discourse. In this way, Beasts of the Southern Wild, effectively, highlights mythological structures operating in contemporary American society. Mircea Eliade, Roger Caillois and G.S. Kirk define mythology as a …

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Full-Text Articles in History

The Return: Life After Isis, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

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

Journal of Religion & Film

Revising Mary Queen Of Scots: From Protestant Persecution To Patriarchal Struggle, Jennifer M. Desilva, Emily K. Mcguire

Journal of Religion & Film

No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander

Journal of Religion & Film

Apocalypse And Eschatology In John Ford's The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), Nancy Wright

Journal of Religion & Film

Yalda, A Night For Forgiveness, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

A Hidden Life, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

Religion And Culture In Inherit The Wind, Zachary Sheldon

Journal of Religion & Film

Myth And Monstrosity: Teaching Indigenous Films, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

‘I Am That Very Witch’: On The Witch, Feminism, And Not Surviving Patriarchy, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

Representations Of Nineteenth Century Mormonism In A Mormon Maid: A Cinematic Analysis, Elisabeth Weagel

Journal of Religion & Film

Reason (Vivek), J. Barton Scott

Journal of Religion & Film

The Impact Of Immigration On Cold War Modernization Efforts: A Case Study Of South Korea, Shannon Hayes

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Depictions Of Catholic And Protestant Bodies In Elizabeth (Dir. Kapur, 1998), Jennifer M. Desilva, Alison R. Orewiler

Journal of Religion & Film

A Fight Over Souls: Documentary Films On The Rwandan Genocide With A Christian Theme, Tommy Gustafsson

Journal of Religion & Film

Superhero Films: A Fascist National Complex Or Exemplars Of Moral Virtue?, Chris Yogerst

Journal of Religion & Film

An Oral History Of Italian American Identity & Perception During The First Half Of The 20th Century, Joshua A. Hoxmeier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Lone Man And All My Relations, Doug Meigs

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Winnie, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic

Journal of Religion & Film

Indigenous Helpers And Renegade Invaders: Ambivalent Characters In Biblical And Cinematic Conquest Narratives, L. Daniel Hawk

Journal of Religion & Film

Gimme Danger; Leehom Wang's Open Fire Concert Film, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

Dr. King And The Image Of God: A Theology Of Voting Rights In Ava Duvernay's Selma, Marcos Norris

Journal of Religion & Film

Memoir Of Shair Mohammad Khan Kamrany, Shair Mohammad Khan Kamrany, Nake M. Kamrany, Maryam Qudrat, Saleh Mohammad Kamrany, Nazaneen Habib, Frozan Habib, Patrick Moore

Books in English

Russia And Britain In Persia: Imperial Ambitions In Qajar Iran. By Firuz Kazemzadeh. (New York, Ny: I. B. Tauris, 2013. Pp. Xvii, 711. $85.00.), James D. Clark

History Faculty Publications

The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm

Journal of Religion & Film

An Evil Threat To Marriage, Children And The Future: Queer Theory, "The Passion Of The Christ," And Evangelical Political Rhetoric, Richard Wolff

Journal of Religion & Film

The Binding Of Abraham: Inverting The Akedah In Fail-Safe And Wargames, Hunter B. Dukes

Journal of Religion & Film

Crowdsourcing Digital Public History, Jason A. Heppler, Gabriel K. Wolfenstein

Criss Library Faculty Publications

With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas

Journal of Religion & Film