Skip to main content
The Screen and the Sacred City cover
Quantity
Pre-order. Available 13 May 2027
$136.80 RRP $171.00 Website price saving $34.20 (20%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

Description

How does a film's setting not only shape how we engage with its depiction of urban life but also of religion and theology?

This edited collection offers a theological reflection on film, focusing on the role of "the city." Calvin D. Ullrich, Khegan M. Delport, Marthinus J. Havenga and their contributors offer theological reflections on film, illuminating traditional theological features which appear across city-focused cinema. Gathering contributions from a variety of theological experts working predominantly at the intersection of theological systematics, culture, and political ethics, the volume incorporates a variety of films where "the city" can become the object of and the object for vivified theological interest.

Across three sections, Ullrich, Delport, Havenga and their contributors discuss both theological implications in cinema depicting both real life and fictional cities. Within this context, "the city" becomes understood as an aesthetic backdrop, a theological metaphor/imagination, and an un/livable communal and atomized location/space. Through this multi-leveled approach, the essays herein ask critical questions about the role "the city" has in shaping not only a film's viewing experience, but the religious and theological queries it engages.

Accessibility Information

Additional accessibility information

  • PDF/UA-2, 1.4
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

Hazards

The publication contains no hazards

Support for non-visual reading

Has alternative text descriptions for images

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order

Table of Contents

Introduction: Calvin D. Ullrich (University of the Free State, South Africa), Khegan M. Delport (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa), Marthinus J. Havenga (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
PART 1: THEOLOGICAL IMAGINARIES
1: Theology, Two Films, and the City, Douglas F. Ottati (Davidson College, USA)
2: The Betrayed Fool: Love Actually and Betrayal as a Relational and Epistemic Crisis, Katja Ekman (Lund University, Sweden)
3: Mythic Resonance in the Modern City: Krzysztof Kiešlowski's Agnostic Spirituality, Graham Ward (University of Oxford, UK)
4: Paying Attention to Paris in Paris: Notes Toward a Theology of Urban Living, Ola Sigurdsson (University of Oslo, Norway)
5: Life and Death in Philadelphia: A Mystagogic Reading of David Lynch's Eraserhead, Khegan M. Delport (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)
PART 2: FILMIC INTERPRETATIONS
6: Painting Still Lifes with Death Rituals on an Urban Canvas: Uberto Pasolini's Still Life through the lens of fictive ritual, Cas Wepener (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
7: Nos sumus tempora: On Wings of Desire, Time, and Berlin, Marthinus J. Havenga (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
8: Concrete Incarnations? Brutalism and the Fall in Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, Calvin D. Ullrich (University of the Free State, South Africa)
9: God in the “Marvellous City”: Exuberance, Brutality, and Love, Rudolf von Sinner (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil)
10: Screening Heroic Cities: Sacralizing Izmir, Istanbul, and Çanakkale in Cine-Ottoman Projection, Torsten Janson (Lund University, Sweden)
PART 3: URBAN CROSSINGS
11: Seeing the familiar through strange eyes? Steve McQueen's Occupied City, walking, flânerie, and public theology, Dion A. Forster (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL and Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
12: City Gardens on Earth and in Heaven: Tomorrow, the Heavenly City, and earthly utopias, Thomas Wabel (University of Bamberg, Germany)
13: What does it feel like to be a problem? From Violence to Belonging when Cruising Utopia with José Esteban Muñoz, Charlene van der Walt (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
14: Composting Theology: Making Meaning in the Remains, Michael Mawson (University of Auckland, New Zealand/Aotearoa)
15: Of Songbirds and Snakes in Panem, Ernst M. Conradie (University of the Western Cape, ZA) and Pieter Conradie (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
16: Bonhoeffer and the Quietness of Berlin, New York, and Frankfurt: A personal reflection on All Quiet on the Western Front in different contexts, Karola Radler (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Product details

Published 13 May 2027
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 288
ISBN 9798216451853
Imprint T&T Clark
Series Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Calvin D. Ullrich

Calvin D. Ullrich is a Senior Lecturer in Interdis…

Anthology Editor

Khegan M. Delport

Khegan M. Delport is the Alexander von Humboldt Po…

Anthology Editor

Marthinus J. Havenga

Marthinus J. Havenga is the Director of Theologica…

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging