S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate
Professor of Religious Studies, By Special Appointment
Born in the year of the Fire Horse, Rodriguez-Plate has traveled the world seeking ways that people practice and/or fight against religious traditions. Convinced that religion has less to do with beliefs than with bodies, Rodriguez-Plate investigates the ways people connect with physical objects through sense perception: the things we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch are what give us our spiritual dimension.
They have presented their research at museums, cultural centers, and universities across Asia, Europe, and North America. They’ve authored or edited 15 books, and essays have appeared in Newsweek, Slate, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Lion’s Roar, The Christian Century, The Islamic Monthly, and the Huffington Post. Rodriguez-Plate is the executive director of APRIL (Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life), editor of the 70-year-old journal CrossCurrents, and board member of the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, N.Y.
Recent Courses Taught
Artists' Books and Sacred Texts
Religious Diversity in the U.S.A.
Pop Culture/Pop Religion
Seminar: Religion, Art and Visual Culture
Seminar: Religion and Media
Spirituality and Sensuality: Sacred Objects in Religious Life (EdX)
Distinctions
- Executive Director, APRIL (The Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life), 2021-present
- Editor, CrossCurrents journal, 2021-present
- Managing Editor and Co-Founder, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, 2004-20
- Book Series co-editor, “Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion,” 2016- present
- President and Co-Founder, SCRIPT (Society for Comparative Research in Iconic and Performative Texts), 2010-20
- Editorial Board, Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Oxford University Press), 2011-present
- Editorial Board, Journal of Religion and Film (University of Nebraska) 2012-present
- Editorial Board, Postscripts: A Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds (Equinox) 2004-present
- Board of Trustees, Interfaith Council of Greater Utica, 2014-present
- Advisory Board, The Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion, Open University, UK, 2018-present
Selected Publications and Creative Projects
Books and Chapters
- The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion, co-edited with Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Pooyan Tamimi Arab (London: Routledge, 2023)
- Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World (London: Wallflower Press; New York: Columbia University Press, 2017)
- A History of Religion in 5½ Objects (Boston: Beacon Press, March 2014)
- Religion in Museums, co-edited with Gretchen Buggeln, and Crispin Paine (London: Bloomsbury, 2017)
- Key Terms in Material Religion, edited (London: Bloomsbury 2015
- Blasphemy: Art that Offends (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2006)
- Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics: Rethinking Religion Through the Arts (New York: Routledge, 2005)
- By the Way: Dispatches, Devotions, and Deliriums from the Camino de Santiago (Killing the Buddha Publishing, 2017).
- “Cinema,” in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. (Oxford University Press, 2015)
- “Visual Arts and Culture,” in Vocabulary for the Study of Religion, Robert Segal and Kocku von Stuckrad, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2015)
- “Ornament and the Other: Sacred Spaces and Religious Identities in Andalusia,” in Religious Representation in Place: Exploring Meaningful Spaces at the Intersection of the Humanities and Sciences, Mark George and Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, eds. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
- “Looking at Words: The Iconicity of the Page,” Iconic Books and Texts, James Watts, ed. (London: Equinox, 2013)
- “A Nation Birthed in Blood: Violent Cosmogonies and American Film,” in From Jeremiad to Jihad: Religion, Violence, and America, John Carlson and Jonathan Ebel, eds. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012)
Journal Articles
- “Visualizing the Cosmos: Terrence Malick's Tree of Life and Other Visions of Life in the Universe,” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.2 (2012): 527-536
- “The Skin of Religion: Aesthetic Mediations of the Sacred,” in CrossCurrents, 62.2 (2012): 162-180
- “The Mediation of Meaning, or, Re-Mediating McLuhan,” in CrossCurrents, 62.2 (2012): 156-161
- “Who do you see that I am? Global Perspectives on Jesus Films,” (co-authored with Darren Middleton) in New Theology Review 24.3 (2011): 17-28
- “Words,” Material Religion special issue, “Keywords in Material Religion” 7.1 (2011): 156-162
- “Looking at Words: The Iconicity of the Page,” in Postscripts 6.1-3 (2010): 67-82
- “Religion is Playing Games: Playing Video Gods, Playing to Play,” Religious Studies and Theology, 29.2 (2010): 215-230
Creative Projects
- Producer of documentary film “In God's House: The Religious Landscape of Utica, NY,” a film by Robert Knight (2015)
- Curator of art exhibition, “Stations” at the Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College (2010)
Professional Affiliations
American Academy of Religion
Society for Anthropology of Religion
Society of Biblical Literature
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Council of Editors of Learned Journals
Professional Service
- Managing Editor and Co-Founder, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, 2004-present
- President and Co-Founder, SCRIPT (Society for Comparative Research in Iconic and Performative Texts), 2010-present
- President, Association for Religion and Intellectual Life (ARIL) / CrossCurrents, 2013-present
- Associate Professor (courtesy appointment), Syracuse University, Department of Religion, 2018-present
- Editorial Board, Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Oxford University Press), 2011-present
- Editorial Board, CrossCurrents journal (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing) 2008-present
- Editorial Board, Journal of Religion and Film (University of Nebraska) 2012-present
- Editorial Board, Postscripts: A Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds (Equinox) 2004-present
- Board of Trustees, Interfaith Council of Greater Utica, 2014-present
- Advisory Board, "Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st Century Museum" project, Fowler Museum, UCLA, funded by Lilly Endowment, 2019–
- Advisory Board, The Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion, Open University, UK, 2018–
Appointed to the Faculty
2008Educational Background
Ph.D., Emory University
M.Th., University of Glasgow
M.A.T.S., Columbia Seminary, Decatur, Georgia
B.A., Seattle Pacific University
