Michael Haneke is one of Europe's most successful and controversial film directors. Awarded the Palme d'Or and numerous other international awards, Haneke has contributed to and shaped contemporary auteur cinema and is becoming more and more popular among academics and cinephiles. His mission is as noble as it is provocative: he wants "to rape the audience into independence," to wake them up from the lethargy caused by the entertainment industry. The filmic language he employs in this mission is both highly characteristic and efficient, and yet his methods are open to criticism for their violence toward and manipulation of the audience. The aim of this book is to analyze critically Haneke's aesthetics, his message, as well as his ethical motivation from an interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. Contributors to the book come from a variety of academic disciplines and cultural backgrounds-European and North American.

Alexander D. Ornella is a lecturer in Religion at the School of Social Sciences at University of Hull (UK). He holds a PhD in Catholic Theology from the University of Graz (Austria). His research interests include religion and popular culture/media/film, religion and body/technology, science fiction, transhumanism. His latest research project evolves around religion and CrossFit, which brands itself as "the sport of fitness" and emphasizes community building. He is part of the research group Commun(icat)ing Bodies (http://communicating-bodies.net) and the International Exchange on Media and Religion (http://media-religion.net).

Stefanie Knauss is Research Fellow at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Centro per le Science Religiose, Trento (Italy). She is the author of Transcendental Bodies (2008).

Together they edited Reconfigurations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society (2008).