The Journal of Religion and Theatre, Vol. 7, No. 1, Fall 2008

Vol. 7, No. 1, Fall 2008

Published by the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of the
Association for Theatre in Higher Education

General Editor:

Heather A. Beasley, University of Colorado at Boulder

Editors:

Norman A. Bert, Texas Tech University
Henry Bial, University of Kansas
James Brandon, Hillsdale College
Donnalee Dox, Texas A&M University
Ron Grimes, Radboud University Nijmegen
Lance Gharavi, Arizona State University
Dennis Henneman, Youngstown State University
Eric Mazur, Virginia Wesleyan College
John Steven Paul, Valparaiso University
Mark Pilkinton, University of Notre Dame
Mark Pizzato, University of North Carolina-Charlotte
Adam Versenyi, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Andrew White, Valparaiso University

Table of Contents

Nathan G. Tipton

"Thou Knowest My Foolishness":

The Problems with Paul in Erasmus’s Praise of Folly

and Jim Grimsley’s The Lizard of Tarsus

[pages 1 - 19]

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This article explores the folly inherent in both pre-modern and post-modern portrayals of the alternately venerated or vilified Apostle Paul. By examining Paul on his most human level(s) through an exploration of his repeated “foolish acts,” this article seeks a level of mitigation for some popularly held (mis)conceptions of Paul: the alternately sternly super-religious, single-minded martyr who both policed and protected “his” inceptive Christian church, and the homophobic and misogynist demagogue whose teaching still resonates throughout present-day Christendom.

Jennifer Williams

Acquire the Fire: Affect, Ideology, and Contagion in Evangelical Performance

[pages 20 - 34]

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Religious ideology is both communicative and communicable. The performance phenomenon “Acquire the Fire” is the cornerstone of Ron Luce’s evangelical teen movement, "Battle Cry." This article examines the imprints a performance leaves on participants by considering the role of materiality in performance. How does performance employ the visible and tangible to create affect? How do souvenirs and other remnants of experience reawaken and affirm affective experience beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of the event? This performance works via the mechanics of contagion to incite viewers’ corporal engagement and to affirm the authenticity of their affective experience of salvation.

Felicia Hughes-Freeland

Becoming a Puppet: Javanese Dance as Spiritual Art

[pages 35 - 54]

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Dance experts in Indonesia have described characterization in Yogyakartan court dance theatre as “becoming a puppet." Although this sounds as if the performance involves possession, Javanese accounts are conceived in opposition to possession performance in villages. This article examines what is involved in this opposition, delineating the two kinds of performance and asking what their relation is to religion as conceived in Indonesian state policy during President Suharto’s New Order regime.

Brooke Kiener

Investigating Authority and Defining Difference:

Radical Hospitality in Community-Based Theatre Projects

[pages 55 - 63]

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When conducting community-based theatre projects in university settings, a key methodological element is “radical hospitality”-- “the practice of providing a space where the stranger is known as one who bears gifts.” This spiritual practice can inform both the process and product we develop during CBT projects as we form partnerships that force us to engage with those who are “strangers” and use processes that ensure equal representation of voice and authorship. Further, practicing hospitality deepens our understanding of ourselves and of others and thus is a spiritual practice.

Rabinal Achí: A Fifteenth-Century Maya Dynastic Drama.

Edited by Alain Breton. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan and Robert Schneider. Foreword by Robert M. Carmack. Boulder: The University Press of Colorado, 2007. pp. xviii + 396. $34.95 paper.

Reviewed by Felicia Londré, Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City

[pages 64 - 67]

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ISSN 1544-8762

The Journal of Religion and Theatre is a peer-reviewed journal. The journal aims to provide descriptive and analytical articles examining the spirituality of world cultures in all disciplines of the theatre, performance studies in sacred rituals of all cultures, themes of transcendence in text, on stage, in theatre history, the analysis of dramatic literature, and other topics relating to the relationship between religion and theatre. The journal also aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge throughout the theatrical community concerning the relationship between theatre and religion and as an academic research resource for the benefit of all interested scholars and artists.

Cited in MLA International Bibliography

Copyright Terms: Each author retains the copyright of his or her article. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, cite, or link to the full texts of these articles for personal, research, academic or other non-commercial purposes. Republication and all other commercial use of these articles must receive written consent from the author.

Elizabeth Cawns and Bradley Griffin, Assistant Editors