NYU Center for Religion and Media

The Center for Religion and Media at New York University is one of ten Centers of Excellence funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts from 2003–2007. The Center continues with an endowment from NYU to stimulate innovative research and teaching in the interdisciplinary study of religion. The Center seeks to develop interdisciplinary, cross-cultural knowledge of how religious practices and ideas are shaped and spread through a variety of media. It provides a space for scholarly endeavor, a stage for public educational events and an electronic interface with scholars, journalists and the public through its innovative web journal, The Revealer: a review of religion and media, edited by Kali Handelman. While this project was conceived before September 11, that event and its aftermath have dramatized the need for understanding the spread of religious ideas and practices through a variety of media.

The Center is a joint project of the Religious Studies Program (Angela Zito, Director) and the Center for Media, Culture, and History, (Faye Ginsburg, Director). Kali Handelman is the editor of the Center’s innovative web journal, The Revealer: a review of religion and media.

The Center started officially in May 2003. In the summer of 2003, we collaborated with Diana Taylor and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU in hosting an international “encuentro” on Spectacles of Religiosity: Religious Mediation in the Americas.

Each year The Center focuses on a specific theme, hosting several Working Groups and planning public events that will illuminate its isues.