Stemming from his interest in Vietnamese New Religious Movements and the impact of French culture on Indochina, Chris’s research interests have developed in the direction of the interface of religion and culture. Apart from several articles and a thesis on the Vietnamese New Religion of Caodaism, Chris has also written on the Bahà’ì Faith, New Language Development, Poetry, Séance, Surrealism and the operation of religious enclaves within ‘multicultural’ societies.

Chris is committed to engagement with the wider community and organises and participates in events for schools, teachers’ organizations, The NSW Department of Education and the general public. He is fascinated with the teaching of religion and his textbook for senior high school studies in religion recently won an Australian Publisher Association Award for best textbook. He often leads courses at the WEA and is a regular speaker for the Asia Teacher’s Association. His multi-media lectures on “Civilization” for the Art Gallery of New South Wales over the last three years have proved extremely popular as have his international tours to historical hotspots.

Courses taught:

RLST1001 Paths to Enlightenment
RLST1002 History of God

HSTY2601 Religion and Society, Conversion and Culture
RLST2620 Religion and Violence
RLST2625 Religion and the Arts
RLST2628 Religion and Film
RLST2629 Confucian Spirituality
RLST2633 Religion, Television and Technology

RLST6927 Buddhism in East Asian Thought and Practice

• New Religious Movements (especially Asia)
• Art and Religion
• The screen (television, film) and religion

• Christopher Hartney: Hinduism in the Classroom: Teaching Resources for the Study of Hinduism in the NSW HSIE and HSC Curricula, (forthcoming).
• Christopher Hartney; Creative Phantasies and the Religious Imagination, Sydney, Sydney Association for Literature and Aesthetics, Sydney, Sydney Society for Literature and Aesthetics, 2009 (forthcoming).
• Christopher Hartney and Carole M. Cusack (eds), Religion and Retributive Logic: Essays in Honour of Professor Garry Winston Trompf, Leiden, Brill, 2009.
• Christopher Hartney, Eternal Sunshine of the Academic Mind: Essays on Religion and Film, Sydney, Sydney Studies in Religion, 2009.
• Christopher Hartney (guest editor) ‘New Religions in East Asia’ Australian Religion Studies Review, vol 20.3, December 2007.
• Christopher Hartney, Carole M. Cusack, Frances Di Lauro (eds) The Buddha of Suburbia, RLA Conference Proceedings, Eighth Annual Australian and International Religion, Literature and the Arts Conference, Sydney, RLA Press, 2005.
• Christopher Hartney, Andrew McGarrity (eds) The Dark Side, RLA Conference Proceedings, Sixth Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Religion, Literature and the Arts, Sydney RLA Press, 2004.
• Academic Book Chapters
• “Per saturam or Performance? Seneca’s initium saeculi felicissimi: ritual hilarity and millennial closure in the Apocolocyntosis” in Christopher Hartney and Carole M. Cusack (eds), Religion and Retributive Logic: Essays in Honour of Professor Garry Winston Tromp (resently under consideration by Brill).
• “From Kpónos to Xpónos: Time, Humour and the Hindu-Muslim Puppet” in On a Panegyrical Note: Studies in Honour of Garry W. Trompf (Victoria Barker and Frances Di Lauro eds), Sydney, Sydney Studies in Religion, 2007, 127-142.
• “The Garden and the Gardener: Towards a Cinematic Twist for America’s Prelapsarian Fantasty” in Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on the Sacred, (Frances Di Lauro, ed), Sydney, Sydney University Press, 2006, 315-330.

more...

• RLST2625 Religion and the Arts