Bible and Film

Call For Papers: We will be hosting two open sessions, one joint session, and an invited round table. Proposals for open sessions should focus on the critical analysis and interpretation of the multiple intersections between Bible and Cinema. Our focus is broad, giving attention to “Bible films” (“Bible on Film”), the use and treatment of biblical texts in films (“Bible in Film”), how films and biblical texts can function in analogous ways (“Bible as Film” / “Film as Bible”), and how Bible and Film can be placed into mutually critical dialogue. We explore how biblical texts can enhance our understanding of cinema, and how films can offer lenses for helping us (re)interpret biblical texts. In short, we welcome papers that seek to illuminate our understanding of Bible, Film, or both. We are also offering a joint session, in conjunction with The Bible and Popular Culture unit, on the ways in which characters and narrative ideas move from different spaces in popular culture into the space of film. This might mean intellectual property such as Barbie, comic book heroes such as the Marvel Universe, or pop culture figures such as Ed and Lorraine Warren who have found a second life as horror movie heroes. What transformations do characters and texts undergo in order to find a new life on screen? What is shifted and/or constructed in narrative content and structure to make this adaptation occur? And how do these intertexts, existing in multiple spaces, work together to generate meaning in popular culture? And, crucially for the interests of our units, how do biblical narratives and themes enter into this hybrid product, or allow us to understand these adaptations in different ways? Papers in the open and joint sessions are scheduled for 40 minute slots, with the expectation that presenters will include roughly 10 minutes of film clips. A fourth session, a round table discussion on film and pedagogy, will consist of invited scholars, and is not open to proposal submissions.

Program Unit Chairs

Propose a Paper for this Program Unit

Questions About Membership?

• Call 866-727-9955 Toll Free in the US
• Call 404-727-9498 Outside the US
• Fax us at 404-727-2419
• Email us at sblservices@sbl-site.org