News and Events

Registration begins on Monday, April 20th, for the fall 2009 semester.  Contact the program administrator Mercer Crenshaw at religious.studies@nyu.edu to receive your registration clearance if you have not already done so.



*********************************************************************


The Religious Studies Program is proud to present our spring film series,

Holy Celluloid!



Film has always promoted new and exciting forms of artistic expression and allowed audiences to interpret a language framed through images. Our spring film series, “Holy Celluloid!” features an aspect of film long underrated: its ability to communicate sacred things.

 

Friday, Feb. 20th - Groundhog Day

presented by Angela Zito

2:00pm to 5:00pm, 726 Broadway room 542

 

Legendary SNL player Billy Murray stars in Groundhog Day, a film generally classified as a blockbuster comedy, but one which has been taken seriously by religious practitioners for what it tells us about spiritual possibilities. 

 

Come join us for a screening and discussion with Professor Angela Zito, co-director of the Center for Religion and Media and Professor of Religious Studies at NYU, where we’ll explore just why MOMA led off its pathbreaking “Faith on Film” series with Groundhog Day



Friday, Mar. 27th - Star Trek episode: "The Apple"

presented by Adam H. Becker

2:00pm to 5:00pm, 726 Broadway room 542


"The Apple" (1967) tells the story of how the crew of the starship USS Enterprise finds what seems a new Eden on the planet Gamma Trianguli VI.  Little do they know that, in the end, they will have to destroy paradise in order to save it. This classic Star Trek episode provides a heavy-handed, silly, yet scary narrative about colonialism, religion, sexuality, and the necessity of secular violence.


Come join us for a screening and discussion with Adam Becker, Director of the Religious Studies Program, Professor of Classics, and Star Trek Fan.




Friday, April. 3rd - Tongues Untied

presented by Ann Pellegrini

2:00pm to 5:00pm, 726 Broadway room 542

 

This critically acclaimed account of Black gay life by Emmy Award-winning director Marlon T. Riggs uses poetry, personal testimony, rap and performance  to describe the homophobia and racism that confront Black gay men.  The stories are fierce examples of homophobia and racism: the man refused entry to a gay bar because of his color; the college student left bleeding on the sidewalk after a gay-bashing; the loneliness and isolation of the drag queen.  Yet they also affirm the black gay male experience: protest marches, smoky bars, "snap diva", humorous "musicology" and Vogue dancers.



Friday, April 17th - Satyajit Ray's Devi

presented by Varuni Bhatia

2:00pm to 5:00pm, 726 Broadway room 542


1860. As English education and enlightenment ideas seep into traditional, upper-caste Hindu sensibilities, how does a young woman negotiate her position as at once a goddess and a wife? Satyajit Ray’s brilliant film, Devi (the Goddess) explores a changing Indian society with sensitivity and depth. Set in the context of the Bengal Renaissance, British colonialism, and socio-religious reforms in India, this film portrays the travails of a woman who is deeply loved as a wife and a daughter-in-law, deeply revered as a goddess, and is herself confused about who she is. The film brings into focus the intense debates that took place in the nineteenth century on Hindu religious practices and beliefs and explores the changing nature of patriarchal authority. And finally, the film asks an unanswerable question: just who is a goddess?




Friday, April. 24th - Tykocin- A Purimspiel in Poland

presented by Brigitte Sion

2:00pm to 5:00pm, 726 Broadway room 542


The Jews of the Polish town of Tykocin were killed by the Nazis in 1942. For the last ten years, however, the villagers put up a Purimspiel--a carnivalesque play based on the story of Esther saving Jews in ancient times. Today, all the actors are Poles dressed as "Jews," and the performance takes place in front of the synagogue--a performance about Jews, but without Jews.


Join Brigitte Sion, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in Religious Studies and Journalism, who was on the film shooting of Tykocin. We'll discuss roles, representations, and ghostly reenactments.




 

 

 

*********************************************************************************************************

 

Public Events

Spring 2009   

Center for Media, Culture and History/Center for Religion and Media 

 

Culture, Religion and the Politics of Change

SCREENING/ ARTIST’S TALK

 

Thursday/ January 29/ 6-8 PM

The Great Room, 19 University Place

 

At Home with Their Books

Artist's Talk with Elena Climent

 

Screening: Writers' Rooms: The Making of a Mural (2008, 30 min)

 Directed by Marcia Rock

Introduction, Una Chaudhuri (English,NYU), Discussion with Marcia Rock (NYU, Journalism) and Elena Climent.

 

NYC-based Mexican artist Elena Climent discusses her 5-part mural painted on the walls of 19 University Place, depicting the writing spaces of famous NY writers Washington Irving, Edith Wharton, Zora Neale Hurston, Jane Jacobs and Pedro Pietri.

 

Followed by a reception and viewing of the mural

 

Co-Sponsored by The Departments of Anthropology, English, and the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

 

 

SCREENING/DISCUSSION

In Search of Bene Israel

 

Friday/ February 6/ 4-6PM

Kevorkian Center Screening Room

50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan Street

 

In Search of Bene Israel (2008, 36 min)

Directed by Sadia Shepard

Documentary filmmaker and writer Sadia Shepard grew up in the US with a Muslim mother, Christian father and Jewish grandmother. In 2001 she journeyed

to India to connect with her grandmother’s Indian Jewish community. This film-and her acclaimed 2008 book ,The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked

Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and A Sense of Home—offer an account of what she discovered.

 

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

 

Co-sponsored by NYU’s Hagop Kevorkian Center

 

LECTURE/ SCREENING

Friday/ February 13/ 3-7pm

The Kevorkian Center, 50 Washington Square South at Sullivan Street

 

Female Trouble: Women's Representation in Iranian Cinema

Hamid Naficy, (Communications, Northwestern)

A leading scholar on exilic and diasporic cinema and media, Naficy examines the ideological work surrounding the filmic representation of women and their participation as filmmakers in this new era of Iranian cinema.

 

Followed by a screening of

Under the Skin of the City (2004, 92 minutes)

Directed by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad

Tuba, a mother of four, faces challenges to her way of life when her oldest son sells the family home for a foreign work visa. When his plans crumble, Tuba takes drastic measures to save her house and her son.

After-film discussion with Hamid Naficy

 

Co-sponsored with NYU's  Hagop Kevorkian Center

Hosted by The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University.

 

 

 

SCREENING/DISCUSSION

Friday/ February 27/ 4-6:30PM

Kevorkian Center Screening Room

50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan Street

 

A Jihad for Love (2007, 81 min)

Directed by Parvez Sharma

Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma filmed in twelve countries and nine languages, often in nations where government permission to make this film was not an option.

 

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

 

Co-sponsored by Law and Society Program of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences CSGS, SCA, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Kevorkian Center

 


SCREENING/ DISCUSSION

Friday/ March 6/ 2-5:30PM

Cinema Studies Screening Room

721 Broadway, 6th floor

 

Devoted to discipline: religion, education and punishment in prison

 

The Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South 

Directed by Jenny Phillips, Anne Marie Stein, Andrew Kukura (2008, 76 min)

 

A 10-day meditation retreat held in an Alabama men’s maximum-security prison makes a decisive difference in several lives.

 

A post-screening discussion with filmmaker Jenny Phillips, will be followed by a roundtable exploring the paradoxes of discipline as religion, college education and punishment in American prisons. Do religious practices and education programs simply serve the punitive regime of the prison, rendering inmates manageable? Or are they the lifeline for moral integrity and dignity of the individuals who live inside?

 

With Tanya Erzen (OSU), an anthropologist researching the role of faith-based initiatives in southern prisons, and Daniel Karpowitz (Bard), a lawyer and academic director of the Bard Prison Initiative in New York state. Moderator: Angela Zito, (NYU)

 

Cosponsored by SCA, CSGS, and Religious Studies.

 

 

 

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION

Thursday/ March 26/ 7PM

721 Broadway, 6th floor

Cinema Studies, Room 646

 

US Premiere:

Half Moon Files (2007, 87 minutes)

Directed by Philip Scheffner

 

In this experimental search “The Halfmoon Files,” Philip Scheffner traces prisoners at the Halfmoon prisoner of war camp in Germany during World War I to the origin of their recording.

 

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

 

Co-sponsor Cinema Studies

 

 

FILM FESTIVAL

March 26-29

National Museum of the American Indian,

U.S. Custom House/One Bowling Green

 

4th Native American Film + Video Festival

 

Celebrating 30 years of screening outstanding Native film and media.

   

For more information: http://www.nmai.si.edu/

 

 

WEINER LECTURE

Thursday/ April 2/6-8PM

Hemmerdinger Hall, 100 Washington Square East

 

Three Modalities of Ethics

Webb Keane (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan)

 

Co-sponsored by Anthropology

 

 

 

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION

Thursday/ April 9th/ 6:30-10PM

Cantor Film Center, Theater 101

36 East 8th Street

 

Take Out (2008, 87 min.)

Directed by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou

This film presents an unvarnished view of a day in the harsh life of Ming Ding, an illegal Chinese immigrant and deliveryman for a NYC Chinese take-out shop.

Post screening discussion with the filmmakers.

 

RSVP at apa.rsvp@nyu.edu or 212.992.9653 or visit www.apa.nyu.edu.

 

Co-sponsors: The Center for Media, Culture & History, The Museum of Chinese in America.

 

 

 

DISTINGUISHED LECTURE

Thursday/ April 23/ 6-8PM

Casa Italiana, 24 West 12th Street


Jews, God, and Videotape:  Religion and Media in America

Jeffrey Shandler (Rutgers University

 

From cantors’ early sound recordings to contemporary Hasidic outreach on the Internet, American Jews have become much more than the “people of the book”

during the past century. Drawing on his lively new book, Jews, God, and Videotape (NYU Press), Shandler argues that such engagements with media of all kinds have become central to defining contemporary religiosity not only for Jews but more broadly.

 

Co-sponsored by the department of Anthropology

 

 

 

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION

Friday/ May 1/ 4-6PM

Space TBD

 

Sync or Swim (2008, 90 min.)

Directed by Cheryl Furjanic

An in-depth look at a marginal sport: U.S.A.’s top synchronized swimmers endure rigorous training and overcome unthinkable obstacles to compete for Olympic glory.

 

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

 

 



All events are co-sponsored by Cinema Studies (TSOA), Anthropology and Religious Studies.
PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE

All events are free and open to the public, but seating is limited.
Seating is first come, first served.
Persons with a disability are requested to call the Center for Media, Culture, and History in advance at (212) 998-3759.
Funding has been provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.