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M. Gail Hamner

M. Gail Hamner

M. Gail Hamner

Professor

CONTACT

Religion
512 Hall of Languages
Email: mghamner@syr.edu
Office: 315.443.5716

A&S AFFILIATIONS

Women's and Gender Studies

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Religion, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1997
  • M.T.S., Philosophical Theology, valedictorian, Boston University School of Theology, Boston, MA, 1989
  • B.S., Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1985
CV

Social/Academic Links

Courses Taught

  • REL 246 Religion and Popular Culture
  • REL 291 Comparative Themes and Issues
  • REL 326 Religion and Film
  • REL 353 Religion and Nature
  • REL 358 Critical Issues in Religious Thought
  • REL 391 Advanced Religion Seminar
  • REL 500 Confessions
  • REL 644 Feminist Theology
  • REL 661 Self, Body, Transcendence
  • REL 662 Marx and Foucault
  • REL 663 Religion and Revolution
Research and Teaching Interests

Professor Hamner specializes in religion and culture and teaches at the intersections of continental philosophy, feminist and gender theories, and media/film theory. She is the author of American Pragmatism: A Religious Genealogy (Oxford: 2002) and Religion and Film: The Politics of Nostalgia (Palgrave: 2012) and is currently working on a manuscript that rethinks the public sphere and the place of religion within the public sphere in light of our intensely hyperlinked and socially mediated world.

Career
  • 2013 Full Professor, Department of Religion, Syracuse University
  • 2008 Associated faculty for the Women and Gender Studies Program, Syracuse University.
  • 2005-present Associate Professor, Department of Religion, Syrause University.
  • 1998-2005 Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Syracuse University.
  • 1997-1998 Lecturer, Duke University, Religion Department.
Books
Other Publications/Submissions
  • Response to Sara Ahmed's Living a Feminist Life, in Syndicate. (Jan-Feb 2018).
  • Working on a chapter on "Scorsese as a critic of modernity" for a volume on Scorsese edited by Chris Barnett of Villanova.
  • "Matters of Place: Placing Religion in Film", Material Religions: Exploring the material basis of religious traditions, 7/24/2017"
  • Askesis and the Logic of the Spiral," Theology and Sexuality 22:3 (2017), 143-154. (Published online June 26, 2017)
  • "Sensing Religion in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men," in Religions, December 2015.
  • Filming Reconciliation: Affect and Nostalgia in The Tree of Life,” in The Journal of Religion and Film, spring 2014.
  • “Work and Life in the Balance,” short ‘round-table’ contribution to Religious Studies News, spring 2015.
  • “Acting in Common: How the Flesh of Multitude can become Incarnate Words against Empire”, in Evangelicals and Empire: Christian Alternatives to the Political Status Quo, ed. B.E. Benson and P. Heltzel (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2008), pp. 43-53.
  • “What is an Act?: Reflexive Action in Pragmatism and Praxis Philosophy,” PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review, November, 2003.
  • “The Work of Love”, in Opting for the Margins: Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, ed. Joerg Rieger, Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • "Cultural Saints", in Luis León and Gary Laderman, eds., Religion and American Culture (Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, 2014).
Papers and Presentations (2013-Present)
  • 2017
  • 2016
    • Nov “Genealogy of Affect and Technologies of Mediation” for Got Genealogy session of the Cultural History and the Study of Religion Group, AAR San Antonio, November.
  • 2015
    • Feb “Affect Theory as a Tool for Examining Religion Documentaries.” John Corrigan’s AAR Grant Symposium on Religion and Affect. National Humanities Center, Research Triangle, NC.
    • Oct “Justice and Forgiveness, Wombs and Strangers: A Response to Claire Katz” Psychology and the Other Conference, Cambridge, MA
    • Oct “Affect and Religion Documentaries”. Worldings/Tensions/Futures, Affect Theory Conference. Lancaster PA.
    • Nov “Eros and Ascesis: A Response to Lynne Huffer.” American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, GA (Social Theory and Religion Group)
    • Nov “Secularity, Sacrifice, Impasse”. American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, GA (Philosophy of Religion Section)
  • 2014
    • Apr “Mask and Materiality in Sembene’s Black Girl”, International Conference on Religion and Film, Omaha Nebraska, April 10-12.
        • Interviewed by Kristian Petersen for his New Books in Religion podcast on my book Imaging Religion in Film
    • Sept “Light as Eternity: The Temporal Dynamics of No Country for Old Men”, International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, Leuven Belgium, Sept 18-20.
    • Nov The American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, San Diego, CA
      • “Mediated Affect”, for the Religion and Media Workshop, Nov. 21
      • “Foucault, Affect, and Social Power”, for the Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group, Nov. 22
  • 2013
    • Apr Invited public lecture on Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men at Haverford College
    • Nov The American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Baltimore, MD
      • “Religion as anti-consumerism in the Coens’ The Man Who Wasn’t There” for the Religion, Film and Visual Culture Group
      • “Affect and Religion,” for the Theology and Religious Reflection Group