Research

Argues that the cultural longevity of JCS can be attributed to its adaptability and how it can be molded to fit various generational contexts. Wines examines shifting of cultural references within three film adaptations of JCS: the original 1973 version starring Ted Neely, the 2001 version starring Glenn Carter, and the 2018 version starring John Legend.

In Theology, Religion, and Daredevil, edited by Regan Hardeman and Taylor Thomas

Looks at the apocalyptic themes present in Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada’s Guardian Devil. In addition to looking at apocalyptic themes, the chapter also considers the connections between apocalypse, Catholicism, and masculinity as they impact not only this particular Daredevil story, but his character in general.

Pages 287-308 in Who is Sitting on Which Beast? Interpretive Issues in the Book of Revelation.Proceedings of the International Conference held at Loyola University Chicago, March 30-31, 2017. Louis Painchaud and Edmondo Lupieri, (eds.) Judaïsme ancien et origines du christianisme (JAOC), Brepols, 2024.

In his illustrated work Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, English poet and artist William Blake presents a dichotomic and paradoxical characterization of his Jerusalem as a “chaste whore” that can serve as a model for reading the female figures in the Book of Revelation. This chapter explores that dichotomy and how the characterization of a “chaste whore” can let one use Jerusalem as a model to re-examine the women of Revelation. It takes up Suzanne Sklar’s use of visionary theatre as she encourages creative engagement not only with Jerusalem, but with other texts as well (including Revelation). For Blake, and perhaps for Revelation as well, the characters themselves can simultaneously be representative of a multiplicity of things. Since visionary theatre allows (and perhaps necessitates) the suspension of accepted notions of time, space, self, and concrete reality, by using it as a method it becomes easier to trace the ways in which Blake seems to have read the women of Revelation as one woman going through stages of character development in the creation of his character Jerusalem. Thus, this chapter examines her transformation along with the women of Revelation from her appearance as Jezebel, to the Woman Wrapped in the Sun, to the Harlot, until finally she is revealed as the New Jerusalem

Religions 14.9 (2023): 1162.

While both narrative and performance criticisms take whole-story approaches to the texts they are engaging with, performance critical approaches are uniquely suited to considerations of the body, and particularly of gender. Alongside the growth in performance critical analyses of the gospels that place prominence on the embodied, performed dimension of the texts, when thinking about gender it becomes critical to examine the ways in which masculinity is constructed in and through performance, particularly in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. This article is an examination of the masculinity of Jesus as it is presented in the Gospel of Mark, as it argues that the Gospel of Mark presents a seemingly “unmasculine” depiction of Jesus that performers (as well as later interpreters) would have had to make performance choices about in their own depictions of Jesus for a given performance event. While narrative approaches have more space to hold multiple interpretations in tension with one another, performances of the texts would have necessitated making singular choices that would impact an audience’s understanding of the text.

Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts 13.2 (November 25, 2022): 217–234.

This paper uncovers how Terrence McNally’s 1998 gay passion play Corpus Christi braids together queerness and religiosity to highlight that queer people are also welcome at the “spiritual table.” By bringing together his life experiences as a gay man who grew up in Texas with the biblical passion story, McNally highlights ways in which the Bible has been weaponized against gay men specifically, while at the same time creatively retelling Jesus’s execution to undercut that weaponization.