Cinema, Black Suffering, and Theodicy: Modern God

This book explores how films intersect black suffering and God-talk, challenging secular limitations to divine efficacy. It introduces a modern God concept and reimagines theodical discourses as mechanisms of modern identities. Filmic characters navigate rationality, faith, and tragedy, and the book offers critical insights into cinema's relevance to the sociology of evil. It constructs evil and suffering in calculated ways that connect specific acts, effects, and institutions to greater structures of meaning.

Format: Hardback
Length: 242 pages
Publication date: 26 January 2022
Publisher: Lexington Books

This captivating book delves into the intricate connections between black suffering and God-talk, unveiling the secular limitations that hinder divine efficacy. It presents a novel concept of a modern God, offering a fresh analytical framework that reimagines theodical discourses as mechanisms of modern identities and filmmakers as skilled exegetes who recalibrate divine attributes to resonate with the sensibilities of their contemporaries. Through meticulous exploration, Shayne Lee showcases how cinematic theodicy strikes a harmonious balance between affirming divine benevolence and sidelining supernatural activity, with filmic characters exhibiting remarkable intelligence in navigating rationality, faith, and tragedy.

In addition to positing synergistic links between theodicy and secularity, Lee provides critical insights into the film's relevance to the sociology of evil by detailing how films code and narrate malevolent actions and outcomes, establish clear distinctions between victims and perpetrators, elucidate the societal dynamics driving inequality and oppression, and transform individual episodes of suffering into collective and memorialized identities of trauma.

This profound book illuminates how filmic treatments of theodicy construct evil and suffering in meticulously calculated ways, forging connections between specific acts, effects, and institutions to broader structures of meaning. It is a testament to the power of cinema to shed light on the complexities of faith, suffering, and the human condition, offering a thought-provoking and transformative perspective on these profound themes.

Weight: 526g
Dimension: 228 x 161 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781666904215