Draft:Journal for Religion, Film and Media

Journal for Religion, Film and Media (JRFM)

Description	peer-reviewed, open access, online publication (semi-annual)
Disciplines	Theology, Study of Religions, Sociology, Communications Studies, Ethics, Cultural Study
Languages	English
Publishing House	Schüren, Marburg
Location	University of Graz, Austria
First Edition	15.11.2015
Website	https://jrfm.eu
ISSN (Print)	2414-0201
ISSN (Online)	2617-3697

Journal for Religion, Film and Media

History

The idea of JRFM dates back to 2013. Christian Wessely (University of Graz) and Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati (then University of Zurich, today LMU Munich) developed the project of a peer-reviewed, open access online journal to offer a platform for discussion in the field of media and religion in Europe and elsewhere. Soon Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler (University of Marburg), Anna-Katharina Hoepflinger (then University of Zurich, today LMU Munich), Stefanie Knauss (Villanova University), Marie-Therese Mäder (LMU Munich/University of Macerata), Alexander D. Ornella (University of Hull) and Davide Zordan (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento) joined to form the editorial board.

As a competent partner in publishing an academic journal on media and religion, the Schüren Publishing House (Marburg, Germany) was chosen for the print-on-demand version.

The first issue of JRFM was published in November 2015. In March 2016, Philippe Bornet (University of Lausanne) joined the editorial board as the successor of Davide Zordan, who died too early, on October 25, 2015. In 2018, Natalie Fritz (University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons/Bern University of Applied Sciences) joined the editorial board.

Indexes

JRFM is listed on the following indexes:

ATLA American Theological Library Association; ANVUR (Class A rated); DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals; EBSCO Film & TV Literature Index; ERIH PLUS European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences; Index Theologicus; Sherpa/Romeo; SCOPUS; Ulrichsweb (login required)

All Issues

• Here Be Dragons. East Asian Film and Religion – Media industry is a vibrant element of East Asian popular culture that has become increasingly important on a global level in the last decades, and religion has always played a major role in these contexts. Consequently, this issue brings together contributions on Japanese, Chinese and Korean films, including one additional glimpse to South Asia, thereby presenting portrayals of independent filmmakers, highly renowned classics, but also specimina of manga and anime, the cyberpunk genre, or on most recent highly successful streaming series.
• Paradise Lost. Presentation of Nostalgic Longing in Digital Games – Since Milton’s poem, the notion of “Paradise Lost” (1667) has found its way into popular culture in general and digital games specifcially. Articles in this issue reflect on and discuss the various phenomena in digital gaming that play with and cater to an idealized, romanticized, and glorified past, a more innocent time in human history.
• Academic Teaching with Short Films in Religion and Ethics – How do we pedagogically engage films in the ethics and religious studies classroom? How do our research interests shape or enrich our pedagogical practices? The authors reflect on their own experiences in the practice of teaching with short films in the ethics and religious studies classroom in different cultural contexts.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Media Ethics and Religion – Critical reflection on media images is one important task of media ethics. The articles of the current issue explore different aspects and dimensions of media ethics and religion and thus highlight the relevance of the topic in academic and non-academic spheres.
• Media and Religion in (Post)Colonial Societies. Dynamics of Power and Resistance – The articles in this issue of JRFM focus on how religion and media participate and complicate power dynamics between what is often perceived of and stereotyped as the “west” and the “rest”, between colonizers and colonized. The contributions shed light on how colonial and resistant agendas draw on media for various purposes, e.g. identity-formation or propaganda.
• Materiality of Writing. Reconsidering Religious Texts – Two questions inspire this collection of articles: How does the materiality of a text influence meaning-making processes? How does its materiality impact the multi-layered communication processes in which a text is involved during its long-term transmission?
• Religion and Popular Music – The articles of this issue explore diverse music genres, from Christian rock to metal and flamenco, all of which in some way interact with religion. As a reference to opera – another important genre of popular music – this issue is structured as an online-journal libretto.
• Science Fiction and Religion – In science fiction films, we explore remote universes and use yet unknown technologies – the world as we know it is left behind. But although the technical devices in these films are impressive and the science advances in huge steps, the protagonists still search for a superior entity, for the main creator, for a god, for a lost paradise…
• Apocalyptic Imaginings – The articles address issues such as authority, authenticity, belief, imagining social futures, and art as social laboratory. The issue highlights that “apocalyptic work” is the work of revealing and unveiling – both for artists and creators of media texts and for academics as scholars of contemporary culture.
• Understanding Jesus in the Early Modern Period and Beyond. Across Text and Other Media – This issue seeks to provide a more nuanced and more complicated history of how historical narratives about the life of Jesus were produced and circulated in European culture.
• Special Edition: Selected Papers of JRFM – In this volume, selected articles from all issues published so far are presented to show the bandwidth of our journal - and, of course, to inspire the public to quote it and to submit papers!
• "Who, Being Loved, Is Poor?" Material and Media Dimensions of Weddings – What is marriage all about? How is it nowadays connected to religious traditions? This issue will search for answers.
• Trauma, Memory and Religion – How can we screen trauma? Why and how do filmic representations challenge the audience? This issue highlights that many documentaries on atrocities confront us with a crucial moral question: what would you do?
• Using Media in Religious Studies – The issue explores media as a crucial part of research, as means for both producing and representing scholarly results. It focuses mainly on two topics: didactics of teaching religious studies and exhibiting religions.
• Drawn Stories, Moving Images. Comic Books and their Screen Adaptations In many comics, religious symbols are widely used; protagonists often become – in their own, sometimes rather particular ways – savior-like figure in order to bring salvation to an evil and hostile world. This issue focuses on the religious potential of comics books and their screen adaptation.
• From Social Criticism to Hope. The Cinema of the Dardenne Brothers – This issue pursues two goals: first, the analysis and evaluation of the work of the Dardenne Brothers from the perspective of the study of religions and theology; and second, a more fundamental reflection on the relationship between cinema and “reality” and the questions of responsibility and hope that may emerge from it.
• "I Sing the body electric". Body, Voice, Technology and Religion – The body and being embodied are fundamental modes of our existence. We rely on body to interact with each other and our environment through corporal language or sensations. This issue deals with the interrelation between body, voice, technology, and religion with selected articles from different disciplines.
• Thinking Methods in Media and Religion – The first issue of JRFM presents a range of methodological procedures by highlighting three selected communication models: the first part considers a model that defines communication as an overlap of spaces that mediates meaning-making processes; the second part looks at the employment of a gender lens for investigation of the relationship between media and religion; the final part analyses the interaction between media and religion in the context of various contemporary art productions.

Networks

• Religion, Film, Media – International Research Group and Platform
• Interfilm – International Interchurch Filmorganisation
• Signis – World Catholic Association for Communication
• International Exchange on Media and Religion – International Research Group
• Medien und Religion – International Research Group