The Divine Wedgie
The Department of Catholic Studies at DePaul University is inviting enrollment into one of its new course offerings to be taught by “the Divine Wedgie’s” blogger at large and Visiting Professor, Matthew Tan, entitled “The Church and Popular Culture“.
The course, to be held in the Winter Quarter of 2014 (beginning 6th January), will explore pop culture through the lens of Catholic theology. It will demonstrate how pop culture is more than a system of distributing goods and services, but also a way of forming human persons, and ultimately worshippers of different gods.
The course will use the theology of St Augustine as the basis of looking at areas such as advertising, fashion, music and movies. These will become case studies to explore the ways in which the spiritual dimension of the human person has become affirmed and yet commodified as a product. In addition, the course will analyse how the kinds of persons as depicted in the Christian tradition are either affirmed or distorted in pop culture.
The course will be held in 2 sessions (90 mins each) a week over 10 weeks in De Paul University’s Lincoln Park Campus. Potential Topics to be Covered may include
- What is Pop Culture & Why Does it Matter?
- Zombies, Vampires and Faith
- Spirituality of the Mall and Nightclub
- Pop Culture as Worship
- Religion as a Consumer Product
- TV & Movies as Theological Texts
- Cyberculture and Christianity
- Moving the Body of Christ in Pop Culture
Details can be found by emailing Matthew Tan at mtan13@depaul[dot]edu, visiting the course’s facebook page or by scanning the the QR.
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