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Aesthetics of Religion

A Connective Concept
  • Edited by: Alexandra K. Grieser and Jay Johnston
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2017
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Religion and Reason
This book is in the series
Volume 58 | Religion and Reason

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Jay Johnston, University of Sydney, Australia and Alexandra Grieser, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Topics

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    Frontmatter

    I
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    Foreword

    V
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    Table of Contents

    IX
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    What is an Aesthetics of Religion? From the Senses to Meaning—and Back Again

    1
    Alexandra Grieser and Jay Johnston
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    List of Figures

    51
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  • PART I. Fields and Topics
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    Grasping the Formless in Stones: The Petromorphic Gods of the Hindu Pañcāyatanapūjā

    59
    Mikael Aktor
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    Religion, Literature, and the Aesthetics of Expressionism

    75
    John T. Hamilton and Almut-Barbara Renger
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    Screening the Father of Lights: Documentary Film and the Aesthetics of the Nonfictional in Contemporary Religion

    103
    Adrian Hermann
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    The Literary Aesthetics of Religious Narratives: Probing Literary-Aesthetic Form, Emotion, and Sensory Effects in Exodus 7–11

    121
    Laura Feldt
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  • PART II. History and Politics
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    Below the Horizon of Meaning: Figuration, Disfiguration, Transfiguration

    147
    Niklaus Largier
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    The Performative Knowledge of Ecstasy: Jane E. Harrison’s (1850–1928) Early Contestations of the Textual Paradigm in Religious Studies

    161
    Ulrike Brunotte
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    What Does a Reformed City Look Like? – Changes in Visible Religion During the Reformation in Bremen

    189
    Christoph Auffarth
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    Standing, Not Walking – The Hieratic as a Key Term of an Anthropologically Based Aesthetics of Religion

    211
    Hubert Mohr
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  • PART III. Comparison and Transfer
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    Blue Brains: Aesthetic Ideologies and the Formation of Knowledge Between Religion and Science

    237
    Alexandra Grieser
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    Aesthetic Dimensions and Transformative Dynamics of Mimetic Acts: The Veneration of Habib-i Neccar Among Muslims and Christians in Antakya, Turkey

    271
    Jens Kreinath
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    Aestheticisation and the Production of (Religious) Space in Chennai

    301
    Maruška Svašek
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    Moving Religion by Sound: On the Effectiveness of the Nāda-Brahman in India and Modern Europe

    323
    Annette Wilke
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  • PART IV. Concepts and Theories
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    Esoteric Aesthetics: The Spiritual Matter of Intersubjective Encounter

    349
    Jay Johnston
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    Aesthetics of Immersion: Collective Effervescence, Bodily Synchronisation and the Sensory Navigation of the Sacred

    367
    Sebastian Schüler
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    The Governance of Aesthetic Subjects Through Body Knowledge and Affect Economies. A Cognitive-Aesthetic Approach

    389
    Anne Koch
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    Religion in the Flesh: Non-Reductive Materialism and the Ecological Aesthetics of Religion

    413
    Manuel A. Vásquez
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  • PART V. In Conversation: Essays About the Connectivity of an Aesthetics of Religion
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    Subjects and Sense-Making

    437
    Fred Cummins
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    Consumer Culture and the Sensory Remodelling of Religion

    447
    François Gauthier
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    Social Aesthetics, Atmosphere and Proprioception

    457
    Frank Heidemann
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    Semiotics and Aesthetics: Historical and Structural Connections

    465
    Robert Yelle
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    The Artificiality of Aesthetics: Making Connections on the Erie Canal

    473
    S. Brent Plate
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    Authors Biographies

    483
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    Index

    491
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 18, 2017
eBook ISBN:
9783110461015
Hardcover published on:
December 18, 2017
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110458756
Paperback published on:
December 2, 2019
Paperback ISBN:
9783110686333
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
14
Main content:
492
Illustrations:
30
Coloured Illustrations:
30
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110461015
eBook ISBN: 9783110461015
Hardcover ISBN: 9783110458756
Paperback ISBN: 9783110686333
Keywords for this book
Aesthetics; Senses; Perception; Theory of Religion
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