Religion and the Arts in the Hunger Games

In this selective overview of scholarship generated by The Hunger Games--the young adult dystopian fiction and film series which has won popular and critical acclaim--Zhange Ni showcases various investigations into the entanglement of religion and the arts in the new millennium. Ni introduces theories, methods, and the latest developments in the study of religion in relation to politics, audio/visual art, new media, material culture, and popular culture, whilst also reading The Hunger Games as a story that explores the variety, complexity, and ambiguity of enchantment. In popular texts such as this, religion and art--both broadly construed, that is, beyond conventional boundaries--converge in creating an enchantment that makes life more bearable and effects change in the world.

Zhange Ni, Ph.D. (2009), is Associate Professor at Virginia Tech. She has published The Pagan Writes Back: When World Religion Meets World Literature (University of Virginia Press, 2015) and articles in journals such as Journal of American Academy of Religion, Journal of Religion, Literature and Theology, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Religions.