The Conversation

S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate

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Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Cinema and Media Studies, by special appointment, Hamilton College

Professor Plate's research revolves around one main idea: Religion is about bodies, not beliefs. Our bodily senses (smell, taste, touch, hearing, looking) effect the ways humans are religious, while religious traditions create power and influence by altering the ways we perceive. Through these sensual, bodily encounters, material cultures are created that lay at the heart of religious life. Plate's studies and courses range from developments in cultural anthropology, art history, film studies, and evolutionary science, along with religious studies. Among his 14 books are "Blasphemy: Art that Offends" (2006), "A History of Religion in 5½ Objects" (2014), and "Religion and Film" (2nd ed, 2017). He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, and serves on several editorial boards for journals and book series.

Rodriguez-Plate's essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Religion Dispatches, The Christian Century, Huffington Post, Killing the Buddha, America, and elsewhere.

For more information, please visit: www.sbrentplate.net

Experience

  • 2008–present
    Visiting Associate Professor, Hamilton College
  • 2007–2008
    Associate professor, Texas Christian University
  • 2001–2007
    Assistant Professor , Texas Christian University

Publications

  • 2017
    Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World (2nd ed), Columbia University Press
  • 2017
    Religion in Museums. Co-edited with Crispin Paine, Gretchen Buggeln, Bloomsbury Academic
  • 2014
    A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects, Beacon Press
  • 2007
    The Religion and Film Reader. Co-edited with Jolyon Mitchell, Routledge
  • 2006
    Blasphemy: Art that Offends, Black Dog Press
  • 2004
    Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics: Rethinking Religion Through the Arts, Routledge

Grants and Contracts

  • 2013
    Drums at the Smithsonian
    Role:
    Primary
    Funding Source:
    American Philosophical Society
  • 2009
    Japanese Gardens
    Role:
    Primary
    Funding Source:
    American Academy of Religion
  • 2006
    Baker Nord Humanities Center, Case Western
    Role:
    Fellow
    Funding Source:
    Case Western Reserve University
  • 2004
    Fulbright German Studies Seminar Grant
    Role:
    Primary
    Funding Source:
    Fulbright Commission