Summer 2019/Fuller Online

TC533

Callaway

TC533: THEOLOGY AND TELEVISION: COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL IN A MEDIATED WORLD OF TECHNO-CULTURAL CHANGE (4 Units: 161 hours). Kutter Callaway.

DESCRIPTION: This course will consider a theology of culture by focusing on one of the most pervasive cultural forms in the Western world: Television. It will engage the technologies, narratives, ideologies, and ritual practices of hyper-modern culture through the lens of television as a contemporary form of life. The course will provide students with a set of analytical tools for critical understanding and sympathetic engagement with the medium of TV (with an emphasis on American television), but it will also address a number of contextual approaches to the medium in order to develop a constructive theology of TV--one that will enable Christian leaders to articulate and demonstrate the Gospel in ways that are meaningful to modern persons inhabiting a mediated world of rapid techno-cultural change.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Upon successful completion of this course, students will have demonstrated the ability to (1) articulate the relationship between theories and practices for sympathetic engagement and critical understanding of television as a modern technology, a narrative art form, a cultural commodity, and a portal for ritual life; (2) utilize a number of critical tools from the social sciences, aesthetic theory, media ecology, religious studies, and theology for analyzing and understanding the power and meaning of both TV programming and the cultural imagination that it mediates; (3) describe in general terms the history of the relationship between the church and televised media in order to situate their own engagement with media within a larger theological framework; and (4) consider possible theological/apologetic approaches for Gospel demonstration and articulation, with a special emphasis on imagining new ways of collaboratively expressing the Gospel within a hyper-segmented cultural context.

COURSE FORMAT: This course will be conducted online on a ten-week schedule aligned with Fuller’s academic calendar for a total of 40 instructional hours. Students are required to interact with the material, with each other, and with the instructor regularly through online discussions, reading, and other assignments that promote active learning.

REQUIRED VIEWING: Students must maintain a subscription to Netflix for the entirety of the quarter. Although access to network broadcast television is recommended, it is not required. All required viewing will be available via Netflix.

Students will watch approximately 40 total hours of television during the quarter, 30 hours of which will be common viewing for the whole class, and 10 of which will be selected according to the student’s research focus.

REQUIRED READING: 1,250 total pages required

All students should read the following books and articles:

Callaway, Kutter and Batali, Dean. Watching TV Religiously: Television and Theology in Dialogue. Baker Academic, 2016. ISBN: 978-0801030734, Pub. Price $27.99 [288 pp.].

Turner, Sarah E. and Nilsen, Sarah. The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America. NYU Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1479891535, Pub. Price $27.00 Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [363 pp.]

Koyama, Kosuke. Water Buffalo Theology. Orbis Books, 1999. ISBN 978-1570752568, Pub. Price $24.00 [187 pp.].

Joustra, Robert and Alissa Wilkinson. How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016. ISBN: 978-0802872715, Pub. Price $16.00 [198 pp.].

Course Reader [approx. 200 pgs.]: selected chapters including work from:

Johnston, Robert K. God’s Wider Presence: Reconsidering General Revelation. Baker Academic, 2014. ISBN: 978-0801049453, Pub. Price $26.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library

Mittell, Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0814769607, Pub. Price $27.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library

Additional readings available via eReserves from: Diane Winston, Barbara Nicolosi, Henry Jenkins, Mitchel Stephens, Robert Woods, Jana Riess, Michele Rosenthal, Lynn Schofield Clark, Craig Detweiler, Quentin Schultze, and others.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

Online participation, which includes weekly threaded discussions reflecting on course content (200-300 word min.), and weekly responses to classmates’ posts (100-150 words) (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4]. [15 hours].
Required reading and required viewing of all TV programs. [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1 and 2]. [7 hours reading/week; 3 hours viewing/week = 100 hours].
Three page (approx. 750 words) review of one chapter in Turner/Nilsen’s The Colorblind Screen (10% total). Spend half your time summarizing the chapter and half in critical dialogue (what was good, lacking, confusing, helpful, insightful) with it. [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1, 2, and 4]. [5 hours].
Students will create a small-group discussion guide designed for encouraging Gospel demonstration and articulation based upon a serialized TV program. They will then facilitate a small-group discussion that makes use of these materials. Students will submit both the discussion guide itself and a 2-page reflection on the utility of the resource they have created. The best discussion guides will be published on the TV section of the Reel Spirituality website and made available to others in local ministry contexts (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4]. [10 hours].
“The Writers Room: Collaborative Theology” Assignment. Along with 3 or 4 colleagues, students must select a TV program and create a shared document that describes and assesses the following: (1) The core of the program’s power and meaning, (2) theological strategies for exploring and encouraging Gospel demonstration and articulation among the audience to whom this program is narrow-cast, (3) a proposal for a “televisual” liturgy that might capture the imagination of this particular, hyper-segmented portion of the broader culture (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4]. [10 hours].
A 10-page final project/paper that offers a theological engagement with a seminal TV program or TV series of the student’s choosing. Students will demonstrate their ability to examine or apply the theological theories presented in class by placing their chosen television program into dialogue with the biblical text and theological tradition. Papers will seek to achieve three goals: (1) offer a critical analysis/description of the TV program/series; (2) develop a possible theological and biblical approach for engaging with our contemporary culture as expressed in this television program; (3) reflect upon the ways in which the Gospel might best be articulated and demonstrated within one’s local context (mediated or otherwise) as it is shaped by the broader televisual culture (25%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1-4]. [21 hours].

PREREQUISITES: None.

RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: Option to meet the C2 or TH5 requirement in the 120 MDiv Program. Option to meet the C2 requirement in the 80 MATM Program (Fall 2015).

FINAL EXAMINATION: None.