Announcing a CMRC Conference Fire on the Mountain: Media, Religion, and Nationalism The Center for Media, Religion, and CultureUniversity of Colorado BoulderJanuary 10-13, 2024 The title of this conference is not a mere play on words or a dramatic ploy to get your attention. Nor is a reference to the threat of fire looming far […]
Author: Center on Media, Religion, and Culture
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Writing in Times of Urgency
The first issue of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture’s pamphlet series, Rhythms, is now available. Download here:
Monday, December 7 at 3:00pm to 5:00pm Join the Center for Media, Religion and Culture for a conversation about religion and media in the 2020 US election, the place of religion in the so-called “Trump era” and the role of media in generating new forms of religious politics. Anthea ButlerUniversity of Pennsylvania Peter ManseauSmithsonian Institution […]
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An Election
The CMRC seminar took some time to reflect and decompress following the 2020 presidential election. Below are some of the thoughts we had and the topics we cannot let go of yet. The religious coding of Trump’s resistance to his electoral loss—a blend of prophecy, prosperity, and metaphysical discourses—is overwhelming for a religion scholar. Anthea Butler describes what’s going on […]
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Bio-Safety & the State of Exception
Last week we met in the morning of Nov. 3––the date of the presidential election in the United States––before any of us were aware just how exceptional this election coverage would be. The conversation revolved around the timely topic of Political Theology and the State of Exception. We read Giorgio Agamben‘s “The State of Exception […]
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Post-Apocalyptic Resistance
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed post-apocalyptic resistance within Black and Indigenous communities. We explored Afrofuturism in an article by Mark Bould, a chapter by Gerald Horne, and an episode of the podcast Faith Uncut. We read about Indigenous resistance in articles by Nick Estes for Dissent and Julian Brave NoiseCat for The […]
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Apocalyptic Framing
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed apocalyptic theology. We discussed two of Catherine Keller’s publications: a chapter from Apocalypse Now and Then and her article “The Heat is On” from 2007. Below are reflections on that conversation. During this week’s conversation, I found myself wondering if the current Democratic Party has constructed its […]
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Surviving the Anthropocene
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed the climate crisis and survival in the anthropocene. Below are reflections on that conversation and a snippet of the Zoom chat. From our brief foray into reading about and discussing eco-piety, the term seems to identify a set of rituals and social practices that models a form […]
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Bodies of Labor In COVID
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed Crisis, Capitalism, and the Body. We put Federici’s Caliban and the Witch in conversation with McRuer’s “Disability Nationalism in Crip Times.” The general theme of the conversation focused on the tension between individuals & community in terms of class, care, and political theater. Below are some reflections […]
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Apocalyptic Politics
Last week during the CMRC seminar, we examined the theme of apocalyptic time. We read Philip Gorski’s “Why Evangelicals Voted for Trump: A Critical Cultural Sociology” and revisited Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” The conversation was influenced by current events in the U.S. and focused on white evangelicals, the deployment of religion […]