NYUAD Lecture Series: Tahrir Square, 2012: The Voices of Women & Religious Minorities (3/1)

Tahrir Square, 2012: The Voices of Women and Religious Minorities

March 1, 2012 | 6:00-7:30 PM

Location: 19 Washington Square North

Viola Shafik Freelance Lecturer and Filmmaker
Yasmin Moll Department of Anthropology, NYUNY
Dina Ramadan Assistant Professor of Arabic, Bard College

In the year following Egyptian revolution, peaceful demonstrations have given way to increasingly violent and sectarian strife. Digital films and social media have documented and brought to the wider public's attention the experiences of women and minority populations in Egypt's ever-changing social and political climate. This panel brings together filmmakers, journalists, and analysts to discuss the recent past and potential future of the country and how social and digital media continues to impact and frame the course of events.

In collaboration with The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies supported by the Social Science Research Council and the NYU Center for Religion and Media with generous support from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs.

Part of the series on Digital Religion: Knowledge, Politics, and Practice

Religion as Media: Spring 2012 Course Open for Enrollment

The following non-crosslisted course that has opened for enrollment. If interested, please contact Janine Paolucci at janine.paolucci@nyu.edu. Again, please note that this is not a Draper course.

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Religion as Media RELST-GA.3397 ANTH-GA.3393
Spring 2012/ Tues 2:00—4:45

Angela Zito
726 Broadway room 560
phone 992-9656
angela.zito@nyu.edu

This course will introduce you to the longstanding and complex connection between religious practices and various media, based upon the premise that, like all social practice, religion is always mediated in some form or other. Yet, religion does not function simply as unchanging content, while media names the ways that content is formed. Instead shifts in media technique, from ritual innovations to the invention of printing, through TV, to the internet, also shape religious practice which has, in turn, influenced its media. We are interested in gathering theoretical tools for understanding the form and politics of this mutual dialectic.

We will analyze how human hearing, vision and the performing body have been used historically to express and maintain religious life through music, voice, images, words and rituals. Then we will spend time on more recent electronic media such as cassette, film, television, video, and the internet. We will consider, among other things: religious memory, both embodied and out-sourced in other media; the role of print and reading; the role of TV in the rise of the Hindu Right; the material culture of Buddhism (icons, relics, sutras); religion and commodification; film as religious experience; Christian Evangelical media; indigenous and digital media.


Books for the course:
The following *books are required in their entirety—find them at Shakespeare’s, Broadway at Washington Place:

*Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: elements of a sociological theory of religion (well, 100 pages)
*Connerton, Paul. How Societies remember
*Dorsky, Nathaniel. Devotional Cinema
*Graham, William A. Beyond the written word: oral aspects of scripture in the history of religion
*Hendershot, Heather. Shaking the world for Jesus: Media and conservative evangelical culture
*Hirschkind, Charles. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons And Islamic Counterpublics
*Lyden, John. Film as religion: myths, morals and rituals
*Morgan, David. Visual Piety: a history and theory of popular religious images
*Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: the technologizing of the word
*Rachel Wagner. Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtuality

Two recommended collections (we’ll read at least 3 pieces from each):
DeVries, Hent and Samuel Weber, eds. Religion and Media. Stanford University Press, 2001.
Hoover, Stewart and Knut Lundby, eds. Rethinking media, religion and culture. Sage

Publications, 1997

Xeroxed readings will be placed on: Blackboard. The books will be on reserve at Bobst.

Evaluation: Discussion: 25% : Students will be expected to read everything for each week and be prepared for discussion: students will sign up to facilitate one week’s discussion
Responses: 25%: Students will post a response to the reading on our online forum each week—and please attend as many of the events mentioned below, posting a short-short response: 50%
Final conference paper/presentation: Depending upon how many we are, the last day of class (and one other scheduled meeting) will be devoted to a “Show&Tell” paper presentation that should read aloud in 20 minutes, including your media. We’ll group them into “conference panels”. We’ll time them! (To be handed in to me at that time.)

Lecture: Islamic Philosophy & Manners of Unfolding in Documentary Cinema

The Center for Religion and Media & The Center for Media, Culture and History present:

Islamic Philosophy and Manners of

Unfolding in Documentary Cinema

a distinguished lecture

by LAURA MARKS (Simon Fraser University)

Introduced by FAYE GINSBURG (NYU)

Friday, October 14th, 4-6PM

NYU Hagop Kevorkian Screening Room

50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan Street

Dr. Laura U. Marks is the Dena Wosk University Professor of Art and Culture Studies at Simon Fraser University. A scholar, theorist, and curator of independent and experimental media arts, she is the author of The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses (Duke University Press, 2000), Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (Minnesota University Press, 2002), and many essays. Several years of research in Islamic art history and philosophy gave rise to her new book Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art (MIT Press, 2010). She has curated programs of experimental media for venues around the world. Her current research interests are the media arts of the Arab and Muslim world, intercultural perspectives on new media art, and philosophical approaches to materiality and information culture. www.sfu.ca/~lmarks

This event is sponsored by The Center for Religion and Media and The Center for Media, Culture and History at NYU, and is co-sponsored by the NYU Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.
All events are free and open to the public. Wheelchair accessible.
For further information, visit www.crmnyu.org, or please call (212) 998-3759.

Draper Alumna Kathleen Reeves Published in the Journal of Religion and Culture

Congrats to Kathleen Reeves (May 2011) whose article "Bodied Time and Ghosted Narrative in The Body Artist" was published in Concordia University's Journal of Religion and Culture in September. Kathleen presented the article as a paper at Concordia's 16th annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference "Crossroads and Borders," in February. She attended the conference with additional assistance from one of Draper's Travel Grants, which she was the recipient of in November/December 2010.

Kathleen's article can be downloaded in .pdf format from the journal website, here. (Her article is second to last in the issue.)

Give Bigotry No Sanction: Exploring Religious Freedom and Democracy: Symposium, 1/31

Facing History – along with New York University and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development – are sponsoring a symposium on “Give Bigotry No Sanction: Exploring Religious Freedom and Democracy.” The symposium will take place on Monday, Jan. 31 at 7:00 PM in the Kimmel Center, Rosenthal Pavilion, 60 Washington Square South, and will be preceded by a reception at 6:00 PM.

“To Bigotry No Sanction, to Persecution No Assistance"—So wrote George Washington in a landmark letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790. Drawing on this classic exchange about religious freedom, Facing History and Ourselves now begins a public dialogue on the nature of citizenship, religious liberty, and equality in a democracy.

Please join us for a symposium at New York University on Monday, January 31, as we launch Give Bigotry No Sanction: Exploring Religious Freedom and Democracy, a multi-year initiative exploring issues of religious freedom and intolerance around the world. Symposium speakers include NYU president John Sexton, dean of Harvard Law School Martha Minow, and Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the U.S. Department of State Farah Pandith.

To register, please visit the RSVP site:

www.facinghistory.org/registerNYU