Conferences & Guest Lectures

Conferences:

Presented the paper, “Ingmar Bergman’s Autobiographical Phase: A Literary and Filmic Return to a Lutheran Childhood,” for “The Cultural Impact of the Reformation,” Lutherstadt Wittenberg, August 7–11, 2017.

Co-sponsored and Moderated “Protestantism on Screen: Religion, Politics, and Aesthetics in European and American Movies.” Hosted by the Muhlenberg Center for American Studies, University of Halle, taking place at Wittenberg University, June 24-27, 2015. http://protestantismonscreen.uni-halle.de/

Co-sponsored and Moderated “Producing the Sacred in Modern U.S. Literature and Visual Culture: Sites of Religious and Secular Interaction.” A symposium hosted by the Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh; April 16-18. [link]

Presented the paper, "John Huston's Adaptation of Wise Blood and Hollywood's Response to the New South," for the panel, “Flannery O’Connor and History.” Organized by the Flannery O’Connor Society, American Language Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, May 26, 2012."

Chaired the Panel, “The Émigré Enlightenment: Lessing, Mann, and Maritain,” for the “The Enlightenment between Europe and the United States: Twentieth Century Tensions,” Center for Advanced Studies, LMU, Munich, May 27-28, 2011.

Presented the paper, “Lest We Be Innocent: Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Cold War Christianity,” for the Fall 2006 American Studies Annual Convention in Oakland.

Presented the paper, “To Remedy Her Imagination: Psychopathology and Shirley Jackson’s Critical Reception in the 1950s,” for the Spring 2003 Northeastern Modern Language Association Conference in Boston.

Guest Lectures and Speaking Engagements:

Invited Lecture, “Contending Secularizations: Religion and American Film, 1934-2004.” Speakers’ Series, Program in the Humanities, Laurentian University (Sudbury, Ontario; Canada), March 16, 2017.

"Symbolisms of Evil in The Dark Knight," RLST 2166: The Problem of Evil, Thorneloe University, (Sudbury, Ontario; Canada), March 16, 2017.

"Transcendentalism in Henry David Thoreau and Terrence Malick," RLST 1117: Ideas of Love II, Thorneloe University (Sudbury, Ontario; Canada), March 20, 2017.

Under the aegis of the US Consulate and US Embassy, I made a lecture tour of university towns in Eastern Germany (June 28-July3) to present on the topic of "Raymond Chandler, Film Noir, and Post-WWII Los Angeles." Universities included Erfurt, Leipzig, Jena, and Halle.

“Is Classical Film Noir Truly Secular? Thrillers, Theologies, and the History of a Critical Concept,” Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh; November 6, 2014.

“Contending Secularizations: Religion and American Film, 1934-2004,” Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh; October 7, 2014.

“Film Noir, the Religious Cold War, and the Cultural Memory of the Left,” Catholic University of America, History Department; November 28, 2012.

“Film Noir and the Not So Secular City” The Duke Americanist Speakers Series, Duke University; November 30, 2011.

“The Emergence of Religion and Film as a Discipline,” Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University; November 3, 2011.

“The Skin of Religious Films: Screenings and Discussion Group,” co-presented with Richard Werbner, Honorary Research Professor of Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester; National Humanities Center, October 18 and 26, November 8 (special guest, Andrea Eastman-Mullins, Vice-President Alexander St. Press), November 29 (special guest, Professor David Morgan, Department of Religion and Department of Visual Studies, Duke University), December 7 (special guest, James Peacock, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina), December 14 (special guest, Vincent Brown, Professor of History, Duke University). Covering film reception and affect theories in relation to documentary and fiction films about Twentieth Century Holiness, Charismatic, and Fundamentalist movements in America, the Caribbean, Botswana, Indonesia, and Israel.

Colloquium, “James Baldwin and the Wages of Innocence,” from God-fearing and Free: A Spiritual History of America’s Cold War, Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh; April 6, 2011. Respondent: Paula M. Kane, Marous Chair of Catholic Studies.

“Origins of an Ailing Polemic: New Evangelicalism and Its Cold War Liberal Critics,” delivered to the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh; February 16, 2008.

“The Bible and the Gun: Robert Penn Warren’s Suspicion of Prophecy,” given in the Younger Scholars series at Haverford College; November 15, 2004.

“Sexuality and the Horror Genre,” delivered for the Introduction to Film Theory course at Barnard College, April 2000.

Quoted In:

Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012), pp. 30-31.

D. Patrick Knoth, “Losing My Religion,” The Harvard Crimson, December 03, 2008. [link]

Richard S. Beck, "The Clash Over New Classics," The Harvard Crimson, March 02, 2006. [link]

Patrick R. Chestnut, "Believers Battle with Satan, Virtually," The Harvard Crimson, December 08, 2005. [link]