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Technologies of belief: Christian visions of U.S. secularism, 1880-1930.
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View online- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- Maciak, Phillip Jon.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Motion pictures--Research.
- Motion pictures.
- American literature.
- Religion--Philosophy.
- Religion.
- 0322.
- 0591.
- 0900.
- Penn dissertations--English.
- English--Penn dissertations.
- Local Subjects:
- Penn dissertations--English.
- English--Penn dissertations.
- 0322.
- 0591.
- 0900.
- Physical Description:
- 254 pages
- Contained In:
- Dissertation Abstracts International 75-01A(E).
- System Details:
- Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- text file
- Summary:
- "Technologies of Belief: Christian Visions of U.S. Secularism, 1880-1930," explores the relationship between spectatorship and secularization at the turn of the twentieth century. It looks to a series of visualizations of the life of Jesus Christ that articulate the intertwined evolution of spirituality and visual media in this period---Lew Wallace's 1880 virtual tour novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ; the early Passion Play films of Edison, Pathe, Gaumont, and Kalem; the spectral Christ in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation; W.E.B. Du Bois's illustrated "Black Christ" stories in The Crisis; and the Technicolor resurrection of Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 The King of Kings. My dissertation argues that this archive, rather than reaffirming the common narrative of a secularization that ends with the commodification and disintegration of religion, actually revitalized many aspects of Christian belief by enshrining them within new media and technological environments. These texts---in their visual depiction of Christ's miracles---merge the traditions of realism and fantasy, actuality film and trick film to create what I call a spectacular realism. Engaging with new and emerging work in secularism studies, "Technologies of Belief" suggests a new understanding of the relationship between visuality, faith, and new media at the turn of the twentieth century.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. in English) -- University of Pennsylvania, 2013.
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 75-01(E), Section: A.
- Adviser: Amy Kaplan.
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175.
- ISBN:
- 9781303396441
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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