Cinema and Secularism - by Mark Cauchi (Paperback)

About the Book

"The first collection to make the relationship between cinema and secularism thematic, utilizing a number of different methodological approaches to examine their identification and differentiation across film theory, film aesthetics, film history, and throughout global cinema"--

Book Synopsis

Cinema and Secularism is the first collection to make the relationship between cinema and secularism thematic, utilizing a number of different methodological approaches to examine their identification and differentiation across film theory, film aesthetics, film history, and throughout global cinema.

The emergence of moving images and the history of cinema historically coincide with the emergence of secularism as a concept and discourse. More than historically coinciding, however, cinema and secularism would seem to have-and many contemporary theorists and critics seem to assume-a more intrinsic, almost ontological connection to each other. While early film theorists and critics explicitly addressed questions about secularism, religion, and cinema, once the study of film was professionalized and secularized in the Western academy in both film studies and religious studies, explicit and critical attention to the relationship between cinema and secularism rapidly declined. Indeed, if one canvases film scholarship today, one will find barely any works dedicated to thinking critically about the relationship between cinema and secularism.

Extending the recent "secular turn" in the humanities and social sciences, Cinema and Secularism provokes critical reflection on its titular concepts. Making contributions to theory, philosophy, criticism, and history, the chapters in this pioneering volume collectively interrogate the assumption that cinema is secular, how secularism is conceived and related to cinema differently in different film cultures, and whether the world is disenchanted or enchanted in cinema. Coming from intellectually diverse backgrounds in film studies, religious studies, and philosophy, the interdisciplinary contributors to this book cover films and traditions of thought from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. In these ways, Cinema and Secularism opens new areas of inquiry in the study of film and contributes to the ongoing interrogation of secularism more broadly.

Review Quotes

"Few books have surprised me as much as Cinema and Secularism, which very generously and precisely asks the secularists among us, of which I am one, to examine our own assumptions about what secularism is, where most of us simply accept it as an essential value, and thus, potentially, as non-secular. The range of films, nations, periods, and concepts in evidence here-not to mention the sheer quality of the writing-is seriously impressive and proof of just how much this conversation needs to happen; proof that the questions matter to everyone." --Brian Price, Professor of Cinema Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

"Cinema's technological modernity has surprisingly created spaces where wonder in the face of the unknown, a sense of the sacred, and non-theological faith thrive undisturbed. Yet academia's avowed secularity has created a blind spot for such spaces. This collection of original, well-researched chapters, spanning a century and numerous cultures, establish a rich new discursive context for cinematic immanence." --Laura U. Marks, Grant Strate University Professor, Simon Fraser University, Canada

"The field of "religion and film" emerged out of a desire to reveal what had consistently been lacking in so much secular film studies scholarship. Now the field has been so thoroughly covered that the question of the secular emerges again. Fortunately, Mark Cauchi and the contributors here provide ample pathways through the secular to think about how secularity is framed, plotted, and edited on screen." --S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Professor of Religious Studies and Cinema & Media Studies, Hamilton College, USA, and author of Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World (2017)

"If readers are interested in pushing the bounds of their understanding of the secular in a social domain that does not always get as much attention in the existing academic literature, they can settle into a chair with overpriced popcorn and give Cinema and Secularism a try." --Journal of Contemporary Religion

About the Author

Mark Cauchi is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and in the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought at York University, Canada. He is co-editor of Immanent Frames: Postsecular Cinema between Malick and von Trier (2018).