The Blair Martyr Project: The "Passion of Perpetua" and Found Footage Horror
Scholarly conversations about the Passion of Perpetua have often centred not only on the historicity of the events described, but also on the authenticity of its claim that certain sections were written by the hand of Perpetua herself in her personal diary or journal. This has led some scholars to s...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Saskatchewan
[2019]
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| In: |
Journal of religion and popular culture
Year: 2019, Volume: 31, Issue: 3, Pages: 183-195 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis
/ Found footage
/ The Blair witch project
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion AZ New religious movements |
| Further subjects: | B
Found footage
B Horror B Perpetua B The Blair Witch Project |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Scholarly conversations about the Passion of Perpetua have often centred not only on the historicity of the events described, but also on the authenticity of its claim that certain sections were written by the hand of Perpetua herself in her personal diary or journal. This has led some scholars to seek to adjudicate which sections of the account should be considered "authentic" and which are the work of a later editor(s). I propose instead to read the Passion of Perpetua through the lens of found footage, a sub-genre of horror films popularized by the release of the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project. While found footage as a genre is obviously a modern invention for a different medium, it nonetheless offers a helpful heuristic for understanding the function of the Passion of Perpetua. While the author(s) of this ancient text was certainly unaware of modern movie-making conventions, the text nonetheless bears striking and important affinities with found footage horror both in its conceits and its intended effect. |
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| ISSN: | 1703-289X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.2017-0064 |