Course syllabus

THEOREL 101/G: The Bible in Popular Culture, semester 1, 2016

Why did Kanye West invite Jesus on stage during his Yeezus tour? Who is the new messiah – Harry Potter or Harry Styles? Why are Adam and Eve so popular in contemporary advertising? What do Winston Peters and Donald Trump know about the Bible? And why should we care?

This course will get you thinking about these and other fascinating questions, as we introduce you to the various ways the Bible plays a significant cultural role in contemporary popular culture. By learning to analyse religious and biblical references found in music, film, TV, art, advertising and the media, you will discover that, even in today’s increasingly secular world, the Bible continues to both influence and be influenced by our cultural, political, and religious landscapes.

This class will interest you regardless of your knowledge of the Bible. Any student can study the Bible whether they are of the Jewish or Christian faith, another faith, or of no religious faith at all. The Bible is explored as a cultural text in this course and all we require from students is an inquiring mind and a desire to develop some of the skills involved in cultural and religious studies.

Your lecturers are: Dr Caroline Blyth (c.blyth@auckland.ac.nz)  and Dr Robert Myles (r.myles@auckland.ac.nz)

Class times and locations: check on SSO

There are no tutorials for this course - just three 1-hour lectures per week. The final lecture of each week will be a little like a tutorial, though, in that we will go over the week's topic in more depth, relate the topic to course assignments, and have more class discussions.

Learning outcomes:

Upon completion of this course, students should:

1. Have learned basic theories of analysing popular culture and be able to apply these to cultural texts, including those encountered in class;
2. Be able to explain how the Bible influences popular culture and how popular culture influences interpretations of the biblical texts;
3. Be familiar with the ways in which the Bible functions as a cultural resource in a wide variety of contemporary contexts and cultures;
4. Be able to identify some significant Biblical themes and characters as they appear in popular culture texts, including film, music, art, advertising, television and the media;
5. Have learned the skills of planning a research essay, including writing an essay proposal and searching for appropriate resources using library searches and online databases.

The 2016 course outline, including assignment details, can be found here: COURSE OUTLINE THEOREL 101G 2016.pdf

For a 'taster' of some of the course themes, watch this PPT presentation (it's best if you download it then watch it as a slideshow): 2016 special presentation week 1.pptx

Weekly topics

1. Introduction to the course; what is popular culture?
2. The Bible: Fact or Fiction?
3. Methods in studying the Bible in pop culture - Noah as a case study
4. Biblical characters and their cultural afterlives - Delilah as a case study
5. More methods in studying the Bible in pop culture - the Bible and politics
6. Prophecy in the Bible and pop culture
7. The Jesus industry
8. Jesus in film
9. Biblical messiahs, popular messiahs and the American monomyth
10. The Bible and violence - biblical themes in crime fiction and drama
11. It's the end of the world/semester - apocalypse in pop culture
12. Exam revision

 Lectures will be recorded, and links to these recordings sent out to everyone after each lecture.