Research Catalog

Alien sex : the body and desire in cinema and theology

Title
Alien sex : the body and desire in cinema and theology / Gerard Loughlin.
Author
Loughlin, Gerard.
Publication
Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2004.

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Book/TextUse in library BT741.3 .L68 2004Off-site

Details

Description
xxx, 306 p. : ill.; 24 cm.
Summary
"Gerard Loughlin is one of the leading theologians working at the interface between religion and contemporary culture. In this work he uses cinema and the films it shows to think about the church and the visions of desire it displays." "In the figure of the alien, Loughlin finds a metaphor for that which is both most feared and desired: the body and its cravings. Secular culture follows St. Augustine in thinking sex an alien force within the body. But the ancient church also found in sex the presence of a yet stranger desire that secularity forgets: the divine eros that is always other to us even as it draws us into its embrace. In God we find that which is both infinitely alien and intimate to ourselves." "Alien Sex explores the Christian tradition of 'sacred eroticism' - from Gregory of Nyssa to Hans Urs von Balthasar. Through a close reading of such films as The Devils, Breaking the Waves and Derek Jarman's The Garden, Loughlin shoes how Christianity calls to us to view sexuality from the perspective of heaven, not in order to escape the body but to encounter it more intensively. Through desire of the body we regain paradise."--Jacket.
Series Statement
Challenges in contemporary theology
Uniform Title
Challenges in contemporary theology
Subject
  • Human body > Religious aspects > Christianity
  • Sex > Religious aspects > Christianity
  • Motion pictures > Religious aspects > Christianity
  • Christentum
  • Film
  • Sexualität
  • Films
  • Lichamelijkheid
  • Spiritualiteit
  • Seksualiteit
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Desiring bodies -- Seeing in the dark -- Visionary screens -- Alien sex -- God's sex -- Sex slaves -- Want of family -- The man who fell to Earth -- The garden.
ISBN
  • 0631211799
  • 9780631211792
  • 0631211802
  • 9780631211808
LCCN
  • 2003015211
  • 9780631211808
OCLC
  • ocm52714763
  • 52714763
  • SCSB-1324931
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library