Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion, an edited collection by journalism professor Diane Winston about how religious ideas and issues are woven into television narratives, was released today by Baylor University Press today.

"In fifteen rich, compelling, and often amusing essays, this book describes the remarkable flowering of religious themes in the high-quality television melodramas of the new century," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It discusses with both sanity and intelligence two subjects that are often discussed with neither."

Small Screen, Big Picture is described as a pioneering study at the intersection of religion and media. It treats television as a virtual meeting place where Americans across racial, ethnic, economic and religious lines find instructive and inspirational narratives. An interdisciplinary tour de force, this book describes how television converts social concerns, cultural conundrums and metaphysical questions into stories that explore and even shape who we are and would like to be — the building blocks of religious speculation. 

"When I started teaching a Communication course on media, religion and Hollywood, I discovered there were almost no books that explored how religious and spiritual ideas were represented on television," Winston said. "So I decided to pull together an interdisciplinary collection that focuses on lived religion in post 9/11 television series. Small Screen, Big Picture looks at how the entertainment media — and specifically shows ranging from Heroes to House — deal with intersection of religion and race, gender, politics, morality and mortality."

Winston, who holds the Knight Chair in Media and Religion, is also the author of Faith in the Market: Religion and Urban Commercial Culture (2002), and Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army (1999).

Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion
More on Winston