@article {1506,
	title = {Excess, Artifice, Sentimentality:  Almod{\'o}var{\textquoteright}s Camp Cinema as a Challenge for Theological Aesthetics},
	journal = {Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture },
	volume = {3},
	year = {2014},
	chapter = {31},
	abstract = {Camp is defined as a style that is characterised by excess, artificiality, theatricality, exaggeration, 
sentimentality. What could this possibly contribute to Christian theological aesthetics, the study of God 
and theological issues through the aesthetic, art, beauty? This paper proposes, through a discussion of 
camp in its {\textquotedblleft}incarnation{\textquotedblright} in Pedro Almod{\'o}var{\textquoteright}s cinema, that it has several aspects to offer. Camp 
uncovers and challenges the categories of truth and reality in theological aesthetics as well as the 
artforms in which this truth can be discovered. Its embrace of the superficial and material can be seen, 
in theological terms, as an incarnational aesthetics that offers redemption through the affirmation of the 
material, not its disruption or negation. Camp underlines the subversive power of pleasure and laughter 
against tendencies that dismiss pleasure as escapism, and challenges theological aesthetics to 
acknowledge the wisdom that lies in emotions and affects. It criticizes by fostering solidarity and 
empathy, rather than antagonism. Thus camp represents a challenge to self-critically reflect on 
processes of exclusion on an aesthetic and a social level, and challenges us to imagine a different 
world, a world of beauty, love and passion},
	keywords = {Camp Cinema, Christianinty, religion, Sentimentality, Theological Aesthetics},
	url = {http://jrmdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Knauss.pdf},
	author = {S Knauss}
}
