Avatar, Ever-After – Rebekka King
I have given up trying to define religion. I agree with most scholars of religion that attempts at defining it lead to generalizations and undermine the importance of a subject matter in which both internal and external tensions exist. Instead, I challenge my students to look at the ways in which religions struggle for legitimacy and authority. My class focuses on the ways in which religious agents and communities produce narratives as a means of constructing and maintaining their worldviews and identities. This was the topic of my most recent lecture on religious representations of civic space and the Epic of Gilgamesh. I was surprised after my most recent lecture when one of my students declared that I absolutely had to see James Cameron’s futuristic, implicitly anti-war, post-colonial, eco-apocalypse, Avatar.
Do personal narratives heal? – Julie Reich
The expression on my mother’s face was one I rarely see: a withdrawn, discomfited and coy blank stare. The incapacity to conceal an uncomfortable repulsion only reveals itself when forced to face her Jewish heritage. As if facing a mirror imposes on her reflection, facing memories related to her culture and religion are painfully avoided. She calls it: “opening the floodgates”. Ironically, the attempt to evade her relationship with Judaism only reinforces an inescapable bond it; in my opinion, a familiar response to memories of experiences related to evil and suffering. In particular, her silence and suppression manifest as coping mechanisms, and emphasize the identity she wishes to reject. Ironically, in her case a memory usually triggers a narrative; emerging from the depths of the unconscious is a desire to tell. In this case, it was after I mentioned my film selection for independent study in a summer course: “Sophie’s Choice”. The floodgates had been opened.
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