Alyssa Bedrosian will open the panel by examining Catholic feminist ex-votos in contemporary Mexico. In the Mexican context, ex-votos (painted votive offerings) are common expressions of popular Catholicism. Building off work that explores Catholic feminist cultural production across the Americas, Bedrosian will explore how Catholicism and feminism converge and diverge in these works of popular art, how they intervene in Catholic and feminist spaces and discourses, and their possibilities as a Catholic feminist tool in the Mexican context. In particular, she will focus on three Catholic feminist ex-votos that were on display at U-Tópicas, Mexico City’s widely recognized feminist bookstore in the heart of Coyoacán in March 2025. Drawing from scholarship on Catholic feminism, Catholic visual culture, and ex-votos, Bedrosian will argue that ex-votos can serve as productive Catholic feminist tools because of the ways in which they take up diverse Catholic figures that, in some instances, may advance feminist positions; emphasize personal agency, authorship, and creativity; and bring together popular religiosity and a grassroots feminist ethos.
Turning to film, Dr. Nathaniel McBride will explore how the ongoing crowd-funded series The Chosen (2017-present) critiques capitalist accumulation in favor of ecological generosity. Drawing on the work of Iain McGilchrist, he will show that the series consistently engages the patterns of the right hemisphere of the brain, grounding our attention in contact with the world and disengaging the left brain’s mode of categorization and accumulation. The narrative joins this mode of attention to an emphasis on alternative economic models and the ecological materials underlying economic exchange. McBride will demonstrate that these central elements of The Chosen echo the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer on an attitude of abundance and, more generally, ecofeminist and anarchist modes of social organization.
Finally, Rachel Xhemajli interrogates how film adaptations of nineteenth-century novels replace Christian themes with Christian symbols. In novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Christian concepts of sin, accountability, and redemption occupy central positions. However, she will argue that their recent film adaptations reduce these concepts to images and coded depictions of suffering and sacrifice that exist independently of theology. Specifically, while Frankenstein explores the theme of accountability for life, its recent adaptation shifts its focus to death through the use of Christian symbols. Likewise, while the prevailing theme of Les Misérables is redemption, its recent adaptation minimizes this theme by reducing it to the figure of the priest as a symbolic gesture. In this way, what was once grounded in religious belief becomes primarily emotional or psychological, so that Christianity remains present more as a polite nod than a guiding framework. Xhemajli will emphasize how visual reimaginings are reshaping the role of religion within narratives by producing works that appear Christian while operating within a largely secular framework.
Together, these papers will illustrate the diverse manners in which visual art of the contemporary Americas engages the public in a religious mode. These speakers will show how popular art negotiates between traditional Christian narratives and the contemporary concerns of feminism, ecology, and filmic adaptation of classic literature. Together, they will offer a contemporary analysis of the ongoing role of religious frameworks in contemporary artistic activism, thought, and entertainment.