Dominican University film screening examines portrayal of nuns in pop culture

Dominican University’s Siena Center will host filmmaker Bren Ortega Murphy for a film screening and discussion on the portrayal of nuns in the popular media on Thursday, March 29, at 6:00 p.m. in Parmer Hall on Dominican’s Main Campus, 7900 Division Street, River Forest.

While most women in Roman Catholic orders in the United States have not dressed in full habit for more than 40 years, the image of nuns in habits still proliferates in the popular media. Ortega Murphy will screen and discuss her documentary “A Question of Habit: the image of women religious in U.S. popular culture,” which features interviews with prominent sisters including Helen Prejean, whose work was portrayed in the book and movie “Dead Man Walking,” and is narrated by Susan Sarandon.

Ortega Murphy holds a joint appointment in both the School of Communication and the Women’s Studies/Gender Studies program in the College of Arts & Sciences at Loyola University Chicago. An active scholar and film and radio producer, she is currently engaged in a 3-year international project on democracy, culture and Catholicism sponsored by the Joan & Bill Hank Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage.

General admission is $5. Dominican students, faculty and staff are admitted free.

For more information, visit dom.edu/siena or contact the Siena Center at (708) 714-9105.

Dominican University established the Siena Center to engage the critical issues of church and society in the light of faith and scholarship. The center was named for St. Catherine of Siena, a 14th century laywoman who worked for the reform of the church and justice in the world. Her passionate devotion to the central issues of church and society inspires the work of the center in its schedule of lectures, symposia, workshops, retreats, research and seminars.