Yes indeed, this coming week (Oct. 11-15) is our first REL Spirit Week, with lots going on — and we hope you’ll join us for all of it. Monday: students can tag @StudyReligion on their Instagram stories about what they’re doing (class prep? getting a coffee at the student center? in class? hanging out on the balcony or meeting a prof?) and we’ll re-post them to REL’s Instagram story (this will happen throughout the week). We’ll also have a #loungetweets […]
Tag: Movie Night
REL Movie Nights Return with Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Our one credit hour course–REL 360–returns for the fall semester with the showing of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. This 1999 crime/action film follows “Ghost Dog”, a hit-man for the mafia who models his life by the code of the samurai. When one of his missions goes awry, causing him to leave a witness alive, Ghost Dog himself becomes a target of the mafia. […]
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REL 360 Presents Lilies of the Field
REL 360–our one credit hour course–is hosting yet another movie night! To follow this semester’s theme on Democracy, Race, and Religion, the course will be screening Lilies of the Field. The 1963 film focuses on Homer Smith (also known affectionately as Schmidt) who stops for water in a small farm in Arizona and ends up drawn into a lengthy endeavor by Mother Maria and her fellow nuns to build a church for the impoverished community. What begins as a battle of biblical quotes […]
Halleluja! REL Movie Nights are back!
REL 360–our one credit course–is hosting its first movie night of the spring semester. We will be showing Halleluja by King Vidor. The movie–released in 1929 and the first to attempt to portray a non-stereotypical view of African American life–follows Zeke, the young male protagonist, as he breaks away from a life of sharecropping to become a minister, only to throw away his new lifestyle in order to reconnect with an old flame, and this is where the trouble truly starts. […]
REL 360 Showing Kumare: The True Story of a False Prophet
In this fourth and final installment of REL 360‘s semester-long movie screenings, we’ll be following American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi as he enacts a social experiment in the hopes of revealing the irrationality of blind faith. Impersonating an Indian guru, he travels through Arizona gathering followers from all walks of life. Though designed to exhibit the absurdity of blind faith, his experiment may reveal greater spiritual truths than he had set out to unearth. In order to learn what he discovers about human nature, you’ll […]
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Movie Night on the Way! REL 360 Presents: Elmer Gantry
Our one-credit course — REL 360 — is having another movie night. This time we’ll be following the antics of a fast-talking con man who’s on his way to “sell” religion to small towns across America, while combating a few troublesome love affairs along the way. […]
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Mulholland Drive: Extremely Enigmatic or Surprisingly Simple?
Vincent M. Hills is a senior at the University of Alabama majoring in History and minoring in Religious Studies. This post was originally written for Dr. Rollens’ course, REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. Mulholland Drive begins with a woman named Rita who’s suffering from amnesia after a violent car crash. She roams the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before retreating to an apartment where she is discovered by a woman named Betty, a blonde who has come to […]
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What to Do When David Lynch Starts Making Sense (Don’t Panic!)
Now a sophomore at UA, Maggie Patterson was raised in the graveyards and Southern Baptist churches of Nashville, Tennessee. Although she may mumble her way through the second half of the Lord’s Prayer, Maggie remains captivated by spirituality in the South and is majoring in Religious Studies. This post was originally written for Dr. Rollens’ course, REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. When I sat down for Mulholland Drive, I was anticipating a good dose of Lynch-induced bewilderment. And I was not disappointed. […]
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Not That Different
Liz Long is a junior from Colorado who is double-majoring in Psychology and Religious Studies. She is interested in the effects of religion and culture on behavior. This post was originally written for Dr. Rollens’ course, REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. Persepolis, a film based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, looks at a number of oft-discussed issues in the study of Islam. Though the story takes place post-Iranian revolution, many of the problems Marjane faces are […]
tranCendenZ or eXistenZ?
Are we testing a new virtual game or testing a new virtual game in which we’re testing a new virtual game? Do we have bio-ports of cool blue head units? Is your head spinning? Join us for “eXistenZ” (1999) tonight @ 6 pm in MA 210 (or 207 if throngs show up). And yes, there’ll be real food. […]