An article on The Washington Post website titled “Atheists find a new venue for the godless: on film,” and released by the Religion News Service, quoted Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate.  “An independent faith film festival will create film fests for similar reasons — to be with other, like-minded people, to laugh together and cry together and think together,” Plate said in the article that focused on the San Francisco-based, annual Atheist Film Festival. Published on Aug. 17, the article also appeared on the The Times-Picayune site.

Brent Plate, visiting associate professor of religious studies, presented two papers this summer. The first was at the International Media, Religion and Culture conference, a scholarly meeting held biennially in a different part of the world. This year's conference was hosted by Anadolu University in Eskisehir, Turkey.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate guest-edited the June 2012 issue of the journal CrossCurrents (Wiley-Blackwell). The issue theme is "The Mediation of Meaning," and includes articles by scholars and artists working in museum studies, art and religious studies. 

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate recently published two book chapters at the intersections of religion, film and contemporary culture. The first, titled “Religion and Film: Making Movies, Making Worlds,” appears in Religion and Culture: Contemporary Practices and Perspectives, edited by Vincent Biondo and Richard Hecht, and published by Fortress Press. The volume is an anthology of essays that look at the religious practices, including topics of violence, gender, nature, the arts, sports and more. Plate’s contribution argues for the ways cinema construes particular frames of reality in ways akin to religious traditions.

Students in “Religion, Art, and Visual Culture” (cross-listed with Religious Studies and Art History) traveled to Boston for two days in April to explore works of art.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate presented invited lectures during March in Ithaca and Syracuse, N.Y., Louisville, Ky., and Richmond, Va.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate’s co-edited journal issue, "Keywords in Material Religion," was awarded an honorable mention for the Best Special Issue of the Year from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.  The 500+ member CELJ gives its annual awards at the Modern Language Association's annual meeting. This year it was held in Seattle.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate will join the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Published by Oxford University Press, JAAR is one of the leading journals in the field of religious studies, and publishes articles by the top scholars from around the world.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate presented the AAR Award in Religion and the Arts to Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet Gary Snyder at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Nov. 18-22 in San Francisco.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate delivered a keynote address to the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion for conference in early November. The association has met annually since 1947, and represents the social scientific and humanities-oriented study of religion across the Netherlands.