About
About the Journal for Religion, Film and Media
JRFM is a peer-reviewed, open access, online publication. It offers a platform for scholarly research in the broad field of religion and media, with a particular interest in audio-visual and interactive forms of communication. It engages with the challenges arising from the dynamic development of media technologies and their interaction with religion in an interdisciplinary key. It is published twice a year, in May and November.
JRFM is edited by a network of international experts in film, media and religion with professional experience in interdisciplinary research, teaching and publishing, linking perspectives from the study of religion and theology, film, media, visual and cultural studies, and sociology. It is published in cooperation between different institutions in Europe and the USA, particularly the University of Graz, the University of Munich and Villanova University, in cooperation with the Schüren publishing house in Marburg.
Announcements
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2023-05-14
"Paradise Lost. Presentation of Nostalgic Longing in Digital Games" - New Issue Online
While digital games have been an arena to imagine the past since their early days, in the past decade, there has been a surge in retro-gaming as a kind of narratological, ludological, visual, and technological longing for the early days of gaming. Articles in this issue reflect on and discuss the various phenomena in digital gaming that play with and cater to an idealized, romanticized, and glorified past, a more innocent time in human history.
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2023-03-16
International Conference "Open Success!? Research and Publishing in Religion, Film and Media", 14/15 September 2023 at Graz University (Austria)
To celebrate the first decade of the Journal for Religion, Film and Media (JRFM), we invite you to participate at the international conference "Open Success!? Research and Publishing in Religion, Film and Media" on 14/15 September 2023 at Graz University (Austria). At the conference we will reflect on Open Access publishing and discuss the interrelation between researching in religion and media and disseminating the findings in a digital journal involving editorial boards, scholars, authors and readers, libraries, publishing houses and IT experts.
For more information on the programme, deadlines etc. see:
https://open-success.uni-graz.at/en/welcome/
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2023-03-01
jrfm.eu is up and running again
After almost three weeks spending with our backup site the www.jrfm.eu main site is up and running again!
Due to the technical troubles the deadline for the submission of papers for the CfP "Here Be Dragons" is extended to March 15th!
Sorry for the inconvenience!
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2022-05-17
Call for Papers: The Handmaid’s Tale. Connecting Literature, Film, Politics, and Religion (Deadline: June 30th, 2023)
The editors of JRFM invite contributions for the May 2024 issue that address the multifaceted and controversial roles of religion in The Handmaid’s Tale in and beyond the novel of 1985. Consideration of the various ramifications of this narrative in different media and decades and of its impact on politics and social debates are welcome, as is in-depth analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale that focusses on the role and significance of religion, references to the history of religions, and ethical and philosophical aspects as well as its social criticism. Different approaches can be taken and a variety of questions asked, such as:
• How is religion represented and which aspects of religion are addressed in Margaret Atwood’s novels from 1985 and 2019? What is the religious background of Gilead? Whose interests does it serve?
• Can we identify a change in how religion is represented in the novel’s adaptations for different media, including audio-visual versions, the graphic novel, and performed iterations? Why?
• What is the hermeneutical dimension of the Bible in The Handmaid’s Tale?
• Which contemporary dimensions of religion and society are challenged by the narrative universe of The Handmaid’s Tale?
• What could be the role of dystopian narrative in staging religion today?
We hope for an innovative scholarly discussion across a broad spectrum of case studies that includes the different adaptations and further works inspired by Margaret Atwood’s novel. Scholars of literature, cinema and media studies, theology, and the study of religion, as well as of sociology or political sciences and other disciplines are invited to contribute to this issue.
Volume 9, No. 1Paradise Lost. Presentation of Nostalgic Longing in Digital Games

Issue description
FOCUS OF THE ISSUE
Since Milton’s poem, the notion of “Paradise Lost” (1667) has found its way into popular culture in general and digital games specifcially. While digital games have been an arena to imagine the past since their early days, in the past decade, there
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See the full issue