Aesthetics of religion : a connective concept / edited by Alexandra K. Grieser and Jay Johnston.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Johnston, Jay, editor.

Grieser, Alexandra K., editor.

Series:

Religion and reason ; Band 58.

Religion and Reason ; Band 58

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion and civil society.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (512 pages).

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : De Gruyter, 2017.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates that aesthetics, as a theory of sensory knowledge, offers an elaborate repertoire of concepts that can help to understand religious traditions. These approaches take into account contemporary developments in scientific theories of perception, neuro-aesthetics and cultural studies, highlighting the socio-cultural and political context informing how humans perceive themselves and the world around them. Developing since the 1990s, the aesthetic approach has responded to debates in the study of religion, in particular striving to overcome biased categories that confined religion either to texts and abstract beliefs, or to an indisputable sui generis mode of experience. This volume documents what has been achieved to date, its significance for the study of religion and for interdisciplinary scholarship.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Foreword

Table of Contents

What is an Aesthetics of Religion? From the Senses to Meaning-and Back Again / Grieser, Alexandra / Johnston, Jay

List of Figures

PART I. Fields and Topics

Grasping the Formless in Stones: The Petromorphic Gods of the Hindu Pañcāyatanapūjā / Aktor, Mikael

Religion, Literature, and the Aesthetics of Expressionism / Hamilton, John T. / Renger, Almut-Barbara

Screening the Father of Lights: Documentary Film and the Aesthetics of the Nonfictional in Contemporary Religion / Hermann, Adrian

The Literary Aesthetics of Religious Narratives: Probing Literary-Aesthetic Form, Emotion, and Sensory Effects in Exodus 7-11 / Feldt, Laura

PART II. History and Politics

Below the Horizon of Meaning: Figuration, Disfiguration, Transfiguration / Largier, Niklaus

The Performative Knowledge of Ecstasy: Jane E. Harrison's (1850-1928) Early Contestations of the Textual Paradigm in Religious Studies / Brunotte, Ulrike

What Does a Reformed City Look Like? - Changes in Visible Religion During the Reformation in Bremen / Auffarth, Christoph

Standing, Not Walking - The Hieratic as a Key Term of an Anthropologically Based Aesthetics of Religion / Mohr, Hubert

PART III. Comparison and Transfer

Blue Brains: Aesthetic Ideologies and the Formation of Knowledge Between Religion and Science / Grieser, Alexandra

Aesthetic Dimensions and Transformative Dynamics of Mimetic Acts: The Veneration of Habib-i Neccar Among Muslims and Christians in Antakya, Turkey / Kreinath, Jens

Aestheticisation and the Production of (Religious) Space in Chennai / Svašek, Maruška

Moving Religion by Sound: On the Effectiveness of the Nāda-Brahman in India and Modern Europe / Wilke, Annette

PART IV. Concepts and Theories

Esoteric Aesthetics: The Spiritual Matter of Intersubjective Encounter / Johnston, Jay

Aesthetics of Immersion: Collective Effervescence, Bodily Synchronisation and the Sensory Navigation of the Sacred / Schüler, Sebastian

The Governance of Aesthetic Subjects Through Body Knowledge and Affect Economies. A Cognitive-Aesthetic Approach / Koch, Anne

Religion in the Flesh: Non-Reductive Materialism and the Ecological Aesthetics of Religion / Vásquez, Manuel A.

PART V. In Conversation: Essays About the Connectivity of an Aesthetics of Religion

Subjects and Sense-Making / Cummins, Fred

Consumer Culture and the Sensory Remodelling of Religion / Gauthier, François

Social Aesthetics, Atmosphere and Proprioception / Heidemann, Frank

Semiotics and Aesthetics: Historical and Structural Connections / Yelle, Robert

The Artificiality of Aesthetics: Making Connections on the Erie Canal / Plate, S. Brent

Authors Biographies

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (EBC, viewed February 6, 2018).

ISBN:

9783110460452

3110460459

OCLC:

1020026114