Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate says, “This year's Oscar line-up is once again rife with religious references, and the entertainment industry may be overtaking religious institutions as the prime mythmakers and ritual producers in a society where the 'nones' are on the rise.”

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies Brent Plate’s perspectives on this year’s Oscar nominees and the themes conveyed by them appear on several major media sites including CNN.com, Religion Dispatches and beliefnet.com. “It’s kind of an unusual year – almost all of the top films have relatively little explicit religious dimensions to them,” said Plate. “But these films are asking the same questions that religions ask: Where did we come from, how did we get here, where are we going and who are we?”