Midterm

Narrative Theories

Narrative Theories

• text

• story

• fabula

Text

• how is it that we are reading this story

• vehicle through which we’re receiving the story

• form

  • book

  • ritual

  • performance

  • images

• contains inter-text

Story

• how the events are presented to us

  • could start with the ending

• layering the story

Fabula

• arrange in chronological order

• timeline

• latin word for story

Pom Ad

• ad about pom juice

• uses eve as a focus

  • based on the creation story

• what does this reveal about us

  • beauty standards

  • health and wellness (unlike the message of the creation story)

  • anti-aging

Creation Story

• supposed to be a cautionary tale

  • we’re treating it more like a good thing

Eve vs Mary Magdelin

• iconographical markers

  • Eve: tree, snake, fruit

  • Mary: jar, cross, hair

• composite characters

  • Eve: composite of story

  • Mary: composite of women

• aspirational women

• sexuality

Eve

• becomes a composite of the creation story

  • snake

  • tree

  • apple

• lower in hierarchy of creation

  • ground

  • earth

  • no wonder she’s easily tempted

Adam

• high in the hierarchy of creation

  • sky

  • good

Creation Story

• 2 versions

• open to interpretation

We live in a post-secular society

• not throwing away the divide but we have enough perspective now to understand it’s not a neat relationship

  • slippage across the divide of sacred and secular

Fish

• religious symbol

• cultural marker

• one of the oldest symbols of Christianity (before the cross)

• can be found in catacombs in rome

Anchor

• one of the oldest symbols of Christianity (before the cross)

• can be found in catacombs in rome

Monogram

• beginning of the religion of the empire as Christianity

Evolution of the Fish symbol

• became the darwin fish

  • people were arguing the idea of evolution over religious ideas

• culture wars on the back of cars

Historical

historically accurate

• facts

• data

• history

Devotional

more based on belief

• tradition

• devotion

Orthodox

• male

• female

• family

• truth

• clarity

• stability

• individual

• traditional

• foundational

• simple

Progressive

• ambiguity

• fluidity

• process

• relational

Evil in movies

• gender ambiguity

• ugly

Good in movies

• distinct gender

• beautiful

Passion of Christ Movie

• supposed to be historical but it’s more devotional

• Antisemitism

  • contra Judeans (make jews look bad)

  • Jewish figures are ugly while Christian figures are beautiful

  • The jews want Jesus to be crucified

• Made selections from each of the 4 gospels in order to make jews look bad

Veronica

• women who captures the image of Jesus

  • bearer of the true image

• divine purpose

• traditional addition in the film not in the original story

• Jesus face imprinted on her sweat cloth (sudariun)

Mary Magdalene

• prostitute

• morally dubious

• relationship with Jesus?

• dressed nicely

• red hair

• overtly emotional

• long hair

• adultery

• composite character

• key disciple of Jesus (first to witness the ressurection)

  • this is lost because we emphasize her bad morals

Mary of Egypt

• prostitute

• repented her sins and she became a recluse in the desert

• chose the spirit, she could float around

• hair grew to cover her body

Gnoticism

• thought and practice of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries

• distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis.

Satan

• gender ambiguity

• scary

• ugly

Mary (Jesus mother)

• good example of femininity

• opposite of Mary Magdalene

Secular Society

divide the religious from the everyday life

• happy holidays instead of merry christmas

4 reasons Harry Potter is popular

• is technology magic?

  • wands = phones

• return of the repressed?

  • coming out of a period of Christian dominance

  • return of the things that Christians said were bad (witches…)

• Christianity in disguise?

  • harry potter is a type of Jesus

  • tomb has bible quote

• disenchantment/re-enchantment?

  • we’ve lost something that harry potter brings back

  • in our rational world we’ve lost our sense of magic and wonder

Harry Potter sacred text

some people read through the Harry Potter books like a sacred text

• treated it like the bible and read it like so

Is a secular society good

• breaking the wall of separation between church and state is essential in a free society

What is popular culture

• trends

• social media

• brief

• attention grabbing

• commodification

• chaotic

• fast moving

• short-lived

• broad appeal

• easily accessible

Culture Studies

study of culture using culture to understand culture

Culture Industry

• economic exchange

• industrial revolution

Low Culture

• throwaway everyday things

• low quality

• enjoyed by the masses

• low class

• used to be considered unimportant

High Culture

• upper class

• inaccessible

  • examples

    • opera

    • sculptures

    • paintings

Ideology

• imaginary relation that individuals have to their material conditions of existence

  • disconnect between what stuff is and how we perceive it

• hides itself as the natural or the obvious

• association of meanings

• ideas and values influence and inform us in ways we don’t even notice

Religion and Ideology

religion acts as an ideology

• opium of the people

Producers

• make things

• not creating things for the consumers needs manipulating them to buy what producers already have

Consumers

• buy things

What does the culture industry do (producers)

• cultivates desire but never satisfies

  • makes sure people always want new things

Pluralism

• coexistence of different religions

• what we do with the differences

• how people act in the face of diversity

  • embrace it or make it disappear

Diversity

• fact of difference

Culture

refers to the values, beliefs, systems of language, communication, and practices that people share in common and that can be used to define them as a collective

Religion

personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

Thomas Jefferson

• loved and respected today but in his time was one of the most polarizing politicians

• Raised Anglican

• Decided that he did not need to choose between religion and reason, truth and common sense

• More radical than Unitarian friend (Priestly)

Thomas Jefferson - Bible

• thought the New Testament was corrupt because Jesus didn’t write it himself

• not interested in the magic of religion, just the message

• Said he was the perfect man for the job of digging back to the true teachings of Jesus

• Still don’t know if he was a Christian

• Saw atheism as irrational

• Monotheism is the only natural faith

• Saw Jesus as a man after his own heart rather than a God

The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth

• He read through the bible and cut out the pages he found authentic with a razor blade and pasted them into this new book

• Took him 2-3 evenings, left out anything supernatural → basically only left quotes, only about 10 gospel verses survived

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

• his second scripture

• Similar to the first, included actions, included different languages, arranged chronologically instead of topically

Jeffersonian Creed

1. That there is one God, and he is perfect

2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments

3. That to lobe God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself, is the sum of religion

• rejected miracles

• Responsible for setting the ground rules for religious practice in the US

Priestly

• Friends with Jefferson

• Prided himself on approaching religious questions in the light of reason and common sense

• Built his theological system on a myth

Athanasius and Calvin

• teaching a counter-religion, made up of the deleria of crazy imaginations

• Calvin was an athiest

James Smith

• sent a letter to Jefferson calling Jesus “the most perfect model of the republicanism in the universe”

John Adam’s

• unitarian

Sanky

• hymns told stories of individual encounters with Jesus

• cast Jesus as a sweet and gentle Shepard rather than a sacrificial lamb

• Humans were no longer hateful sinners bound for hell but innocent sheep searching for home

Jesus in Popular Culture

• tends to emphasize the human over the Devine

• Expresses a desire for a personal relationship and connection

• Our Christian Traditions provides a valuable perspective

• Often more about us than it is about Jesus

Pantacrator

Ruler of the world

White color meaning

Resurrection

Red colour meaning

Blood

Blue colour meaning

Cosmos

Purple colour meaning

Royal, expensive

Jesus holding up 2 fingers meaning

Fully human and fully divine

• hypostatic union

• Showing his 2 natures

Hypostatic union

Jesus - Divine

• used to emphasize the divine

  • pictured bathed in light

  • looking very powerful

Jesus - Human

• more recently we’ve started to emphasize his humanity

  • people want a close relationship with Jesus

    • can’t do that when he is divine

  • causes us to be confronted with questions of sexuality, appetite and Jesus’ other human attributes

Sola Scriptora

where can we find Jesus → in the scriptures alone

• sola = alone

• Scriptora = scriptures

Solus Jesus

By the time we get to the 20th century Jesus will be separated from Christianity

• Jesus becoming a cultural icon instead of a religious symbol

Jesus in Popular Culture

• tends to emphasize the human over the divine

• Expresses a desire for a personal relationship and connection

• Christina tradition provides a valuable perspective

• More about us than Jesus

Typology

• subset of allegory

  • medival, Christian method of interpretation

• Finding parallels

• Looking at biblical text that mirror the story of Jesus

  • types of Jesus

Incarnation

• Actor and their personal experiences become the character

Jonah and the whale typology

• Jonah was stuck in the belly of the whale for 3 days

• Jesus was stuck in the tomb for 3 days

Jonah is a type of Jesus

Superman typology

• Superman’s father sent him down to save people

• Jesus’ father sent him down to save people

• Superman and his franchise died and got resurrected

• Jesus got resurrected

• Superman is a type of Jesus

Samson typology

• Samson becomes a hero for the Jewish religion

• Superman is a hero for mankind

• Samson is a type of Superman

Superman becomes more Christian

• became paraplegic

• People cheered him on → said he was truly Superman

• “Whenever I am weak, then I am strong”. Corinthians 12:10