- Reflections on UAL’s religious literacy
There are a couple of case studies that are worth using as icebreaker activities at the start of any unit. The ‘Pen Portraits’ could be a useful one as this gives the cohort to get to know each other better. However, it will be a tricky task to squeeze this into the unit schedule as teaching art direction in film-making takes up a huge chunk of the contact hour, and some students are new to this type of work.
In the ‘Watch and Listen’ section, there’s the ‘Interview with Mohammed Ali‘ that would be ideal for any students who are interested in how existing artists have explored religion in their works. Also ‘Jeremiah Dickey – A brief history of religion in art‘ is useful to give a much wider context of how religion has been integrated into the history of art.
It is still early days as to figuring out I can integrate any of this into the film-making unit as there’s a lot to take in.
- Reflections on “Religion in Britain”
a) Changes in religious demography
It is unsurprising to read that Christian believers have declined and the population of non-christian minorities is on the increase, especially in London. Also to read religious commitments are much more important to 2/3 of Pakistani and Bangladeshi 16-34-year-olds. The question is when the population of a city (ie. London) has a steady rise of different religious communities, can the city itself accommodate spacially for more prayer structures?
b) Minority Identities
lenient about their views on dress code to include post-immigration minority groups. Also, this act is helping to transform their religious practices to be less private and more open to any public community. Nevertheless, the practice of Christianity still negates people of the LGBTQI+ community who share their practice system.
c) Religion and dissent in universities
The sexuality paragraph is an interesting read as it’s important to consider many religions use sexuality to defend/define the traditional “family” idea. Certainly, the growing discussion of different ‘non-binary’ identities will need to be considered. As teachers, how do we bridge that gap between these discussions at university and families with traditional religious constructs?
- Reflections on “Kwame Anthony – Mistaken Identities”
Such an inspiring lecture when presenting the idea race is something we make, not something that makes us. This construct of ‘race’ is just a European-centric construct and even though genetic science has disregarded the notion of ‘racial essence’, we are still fixated on these differences. Fascinating to hear that simply we should draw what’s in common between us in order to move forward from this debate of identities.
- Reflections on “Shades of Noir terms and reference for Fatih”
Another dense set of material to get through. Bridgett Crutchfield’s film work is extremely relevant in highlighting the problematic white Christian ideas which still ingrained in the minds of millions of Americans today. Also, Ayham Jabr’s science fiction images depict a psychedelic perspective of the future of spirituality. Visually, it harks back to hand-painted movie posters; this type of aesthetic can trigger incredibly ‘far-out’ ideas for students when considering colour palette, image compositions, and connotation of imagery in the film unit I run for 1st year.