Mission in Film und Literatur

Mission continues to be a prominent theme in film and literature—whether explicitly, as in Scorsese's "Silence" (2016) or the Netflix remake of "Black Narcissus" (2020), or more subtly, as in "The Gunboat on the Yangtze River" (1966) or implicitly, as in Herzog's "The Nomad - In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin." The contributions in this volume explore the portrayal of mission in novels and films. Common motifs emerge, such as crossing boundaries, encounters with the "other," failure, and the confrontation with colonialism and power. At the same time, the understanding of mission remains open in the tension between fiction and factuality, story and history, eluding traditional historical, religious studies, and intercultural theological interpretative frameworks.

With contributions from Michael Biehl, Daniel Cyranka, Katharina Döbler, Moritz Fischer, Andreas Heuser, Klaus Hock, Claudia Jahnel, Klaus-Dieter Kaiser, Doris Kriegel, Anita Martin, Ulrike Sallandt, and Georg Seesslen.