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:
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.
NOTE: This ECD is a reliable guide to the course design but is subject to modification. Textbook prices are set by publishers and are subject to change. Copyright 2019 Fuller Theological Seminary.