Friday 9 – 10:40 a.m

Bodies of Difference: The place of embodied (religious) difference in film, 350 Newhouse 2

• Phuong Nguyen (Ithaca College), Chair
• Adele Reinhartz (University of Ottawa, Boston College), Religion, Body and Place in Félix et Meira (Quebec, 2014)
• Yael Shenker (University of Florida, Sapir Academic College, Israel Institute), That made me a woman: On body and gender representations in Israel’s religious-community films-making
• Vinh Pham (Cornell University), Church, Sex, and the LGBT Bildungsroman: A Critique of Narrative Mediocrity in Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party
• Eric Silverman (Wheelock College), Primitivism, Kabbalah, and James Cameron’s Avatar: Mythic Redemption on Planet Pandora

Placing Religion in the postcolonial imaginary, 355 Newhouse 2

• Terry Reader (Syracuse University), Chair
• Heba Arafa Abdelfattah (Georgetown University), Egyptian Cinema and Representation of Islam Amidst Caricatures of Modernity
• Samuel Lagasse (Cornell University), Reconstructing the Hindu Household, or the Postmodern Politics of Indian Cinema in English
• Anugyan Nag (New York University), Dedicated to Gods, Possessed by Spirits: Documenting Religion and Women
• Kaustav Bakshi (Jadavpur University), Hindu customs, conservation and violence: Female sexuality and caste in Aparna Sen’s Sati and Goutam Ghose’s Antarjali Jatra

Placing the sacred: Reflecting Religion and spiritual experience in film, 469 Newhouse 2

• Jordan Loewen (Syracuse University), Chair
• Peter Schweigert (University of California Santa Clara), From the Propositional to the Relational: Religion and the Films of Caveh Zahedi
• Sergio Dias Branco (University of Coimbra), Divinely Human: Robert Bresson’s Spiritual Reflections
• Joseph Kickasola (Baylor University), Engagement and Transformation: Poetic Documentary and the Contours of Religious Experience
• William Blizek (University of Nebraska Omaha), The Expected Places of Religion, Communities, and Institutions

Friday 11 a.m. – 12:40 p.m.

Embodiment and Spectatorship in Cinema: Placing perception, 350 Newhouse 2

• Hayden Haines (Syracuse University), Chair
• Thomas J. West, III (Syracuse University), The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak: Embodiment, Transcendence, and Sacro-Historical Spectatorship in the Historico-Biblical Epic
• Hwasun Choe (Seoul National University), Religion on Screen: Haunting Memories and Surviving Images in Park Chan-kyong and Apochatpong Weerasethakul’s Films
• Rachel Wagner (Ithaca College), “Carrying the Fire”: Post-Apocalyptic Imagination in Cormac McCarthy’s Novel The Road and its Filmic Adaptation

Revelation and redemption: Theological affects of place, 355 Newhouse 2

• Holly White (Syracuse University), Chair
• Richard Goodwin (University of Otago), “Surely the LORD is in this Movie Theater”: Transcending Place Through Montage
• Eric Gunawan (Universitas Pelita Harapan), The Concept of Beauty: Jesus Films Before and After 1968
• Ian Deweese-Boyd (Gordon College), Scorsese’s Silence: Film as Practical Theodicy
• Rebecca Carter-Chand (Lakehead University), The Fragility of Goodness and Corruption: The Salvation Army in 20th Century Film

Saturday 8:30 – 10:10 a.m.

Ecce Homo: the body makes the man, 355 Newhouse 2

• Adam DJ Brett (Syracuse University), Chair
• James Cochran (Baylor University), “A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves”: Strange Bodies and Sacramentality in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges
• Sharon Rothschild (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Looking at periodic social prohibitions through films that are re-telling a man-creation story
• Sharon Roubach (Hebrew University), Body, Memory and Redemption: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
• Marty Norden (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Religious Perspectives in Hammer’s Early Dracula Films

Placing (Post)Colonialism: Changing representations of the Other, 350 Newhouse 2

• Terry Reeder (Syracuse University), Chair
• Jon Cowans (Rutgers University), Breaking the Habit: The Decline of ‘Missionary Film’ in the Decolonization Era, 1958-1966
• Rinke van Hell (Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven, Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences), Of Gods and Men: the place of a monastery in Des Hommes and Des Dieux and its impact on viewers
• Michael Chaness (Nazareth College), Inflammatory Indigenous Images: Playing Indian and Staying Indian in James Cameron’s Avatar
• Vivienne Angeles (LaSalle University), Philippine Muslim Women on Film

Saturday 10:25 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Placing religion in conversation with philosophy, 350 Newhouse 2

• John Borchert (Syracuse University), Chair
• Toni Alimi (Princeton University), Michael Haneke’s Liberal Critique of Religion, and a Kierkegaardian Reply
• Sean Steele (York University), Everywhere and Nowhere: Process Theology in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
• William Scalia (St. Mary’s Seminary & University), The Art of Movie-going: The Screened World of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer
• Isaac Alderman (The Catholic University of America), “Another Time and Another Place”: Apocalyptic Elements in Pan’s Labyrinth

Placing Islam: Transforming Representational Identities via Film, 355 Newhouse 2

• Danae Faulk (Syracuse University), Chair
• Kristian Petersen (University of Nebraska Omaha), Intercultural Cinema and American Muslim Filmmaking
• Elliott Bazzano (Le Moyne College), Wadjda for Westerners: Combatting Stereotypes about Islam through a Subversive Saudi Drama
• Megan Goodwin (Syracuse University), “I Can Take Your Eyes”: Gender and Surveillance in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
• Rania Mahmoud (University of North Carolina Wilmington), Professional Interlopers: Religion and Professional Women in Egyptian Cinema Classics