Seminar description
Is religion a phenomenon linked with the daytime and its illumination, or can we point to religious practices and beliefs intertwined with darkness and nighttime? If night is both a natural phenomenon and a set of cultural meanings, what does night mean in different religious formations? Is nightlife a feature of secular modernity, or can we find examples grounded in religious traditions? How do different religions understand darkness, sleep, the stars? How is a midnight mass (for example) distinct from one that take place in the light of day? How have the meanings and experiences of nighttime changed from antiquity to the Enlightenment (when electricity began to dispel the night), or to our present moment, when darkness has nearly been banished?
Ranging far and wide among eras and societies while maintaining our focus on the night, the course will construct a history of night in its religious dimensions. Our moonlight journey will follow a number of keywords: Creation, Darkness, Secrets, Sleep, Dreams, Sex, Visions, Prayer, Stars, and Gatherings. It will also include an experiential element, to take place after nightfall.
NAME: Bart Testa
INNIS FYF SEMINAR I WILL BE TEACHING IN 2020-2021: Story Worlds & The Cinema, Action Cinema, Chinese Cinemas
HOMETOWN: Toronto
THE LAST GREAT MOVIE I SAW WAS: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
MY ACTUAL FAVOURITE MOVIE: Touch of Evil
THE SONG I HAVE ON REPEAT RIGHT NOW: “Opening” by Phillip Glass
FAVOURITE FOOD: Pizza
GUILTY PLEASURE: Zombie & vampire movies
I AM SURPRISINGLY VERY GOOD AT: Dish washing
A FUN FACT ABOUT MYSELF: I have a new puppy.
MY FAVOURITE THING ABOUT TEACHING: The actual teaching part.
WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE MY CLASS: Many opportunities to work on your writing.
WHAT I WANT MY STUDENTS TO KNOW: All writing is rewriting.
A COOL FACT ABOUT MY FIELD OF STUDY: I get paid to talk about films.
SOME FINAL WORDS: Roll credits.
Get to know your professor
Naomi Seidman
You can call me…
Naomi or Nomi or Prof (I really don’t mind any of these!).
I just can't live without…
Coffee.
Fun fact:
I’ve ridden my motorcycle all around the US and Canada.
My hometown is…
Brooklyn, New York.
For my undergraduate degree…
Comparative literature, Brooklyn College (another big urban school, like U of T)
I am surprisingly good at…
Video games.
If I wasn't teaching, I would be a…
A midwife or novelist.
What I'm working on now is…
Saving a building in Krakow, Poland; making a film.
Lately, something that has been exciting me about my research/scholarship is…
Thinking about how the Bible is used in contemporary discourses around immigration.
I was inspired to get into this field because…
I discovered a Yiddish version of Elie Wiesel’s Night that had interesting differences from the one everyone knew.
A fun fact about my field of study is…
- I have lots of fields but translation studies is one of them. There are new spinoffs of the field all the time, for instance, COVID and translation, ecotranslation, etc.
In a sentence, what you’ll learn in my course:
To notice the night and how it shapes our experiences.
One of my favourite things about teaching first-year students is…
They’re excited to be here!
My best advice for those starting their first year…
Take good notes when you're brainstorming and researching.
NAME: Chelsea Rochman.