This issue's thematic focus on teaching eligious studies and ethics through short films
originated in a conversation among the editors of this journal about our use of film in the
university classroom: how do we pedagogically engage films how do our research interests shape
or enrich our pedagogical practices or how is our scholarly engagement with film challenged by
our teaching experiences? And how in our pedagogy do we take into account the particular
logic of film and especially the short film as an audio-visual medium? Our decision to focus
this conversation on our use of short films was motivated as will become clear by much the
same rationale as is behind the use of short films in the classroom itself: their brevity
allowed us to preview the material before our discussion so that we all shared the same point
of departure and the format of the short film encouraged focused reflection.
