Freshly Printed - allow 7 days lead
Couldn't load pickup availability
Alien Sex
The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology
Gerard Loughlin (Author)
9780631211792, Wiley
Hardback, published 20 November 2003
340 pages
23.7 x 16.1 x 2.9 cm, 0.624 kg
"Absolutely brilliant." Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University “Alien Sex is part of Blackwell’s Challenges in Contemporary Theology series, a series that has produced some of the most creative theological thinking in recent years. Loughlin’s book is no exception… Loughlin’s innovative method of dealing with his material is in line with the theological approach taken but also connects with the cinematic perspective. His subject matter, however, covers a wider range of interests than film and theology and delves into the realms of art history and literature. … Loughlin’s Alien Sex is an extremely interesting and important work.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Alien Sex presents Gerard Loughlin's incarnational theology in a compelling mantle of film theory... The book's three parts... display continual jump cuts between film texts, theology, and philosophy with dizzying effect, but Loughlin keeps readers from potential frustration through fascinating readings of a wide array of films... he works wonders with eclectic and appropriate juxtapositions of theological and scriptural texts." Journal of Religion “It is frankly difficult to see how a book with a title like this could fail to be interesting and Loughlin does not disappoint… [It is] difficult to imagine anyone other than Loughlin bringing together Christian tradition and pop culture in such a provocative and endlessly inventive way… Loughlin’s work is an important revisionary reading of the role of sexuality in both theological tradition and secular modernity… I would nominate this brilliant synthesis of theology, film and cultural theory as my book of the year within the field [of religion].” The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory (2005) "Loughlin envisages a complete remodelling of traditional Christian ideas on the place and importance of sexual activity in life... Loughlin's subject will increasingly preoccupy intellectually, socially and morally adventurous Christians, and there will be changes in the Church's attitudes to sex in the decades to come." Times Literary Supplement
"Alien Sex refuses, without coyness, to be quite the book promised by its subtitle. It is the more dazzling for the refusal... Alien Sex is rather an exercise in writing about incarnation under the present regime of mass images. It inter-cuts traditional Christian discourses with selections from recent films in hopes of recognizing holy bodies... Loughlin's book is not theology and film; it is theology after film - theology simply and splendidly... The final effect - despite and because of its brilliance - raises questions." Studies in Christian Ethics
Gerard Loughlin is one of the leading theologians working at the interface between religion and contemporary culture. In this exceptional work, he uses cinema and the films it shows to think about the church and the visions of desire it displays.
List of Figures viii In the Lobby ix Part I Introduction 1 1 Desiring Bodies 3 Part II Cavities 33 2 Seeing in the Dark 35 3 Visionary Screens 65 Part III Copulations 103 4 Alien Sex 105 5 God’s Sex 133 6 Sex Slaves 173 7 Want of Family 201 Part IV Consolations 227 8 The Man Who Fell to Earth 229 9 The Garden 257 Index 295
Subject Areas: Religion & beliefs [HR]
