Religious Individualisation: Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives

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Religious Individualisation

Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives

Edited by: Martin Fuchs , Antje Linkenbach , Martin Mulsow , Bernd-Christian Otto , Rahul Bjørn Parson and Jörg Rüpke
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2020

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About this book

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This volume brings together key findings of the long-term research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ (Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University). Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in different religious environments and historical periods, in particular in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past.

Contrary to standard theories of modernisation, which tend to regard religious individualisation as a specifically modern or early modern as well as an essentially Western or Christian phenomenon, the chapters reveal processes of religious individualisation in a large variety of non-Western and pre-modern scenarios. Furthermore, the volume challenges prevalent views that regard religions primarily as collective phenomena and provides nuanced perspectives on the appropriation of religious agency, the pluralisation of religious options, dynamics of de-traditionalisation and privatisation, the development of elaborated notions of the self, the facilitation of religious deviance, and on the notion of dividuality.

Author / Editor information

M. Fuchs, A. Linkenbach, M. Mulsow, B. Otto, J. Rüpke, Max Weber Kolleg, Erfurt and R. Parson, University of Colorado, Boulder.

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Frontmatter
I

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Acknowledgements
V

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Contents
VII

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Volume 1
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General introduction
1
Martin Fuchs, Antje Linkenbach, Martin Mulsow, Bernd-Christian Otto, Rahul Bjørn Parson and Jörg Rüpke

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Part 1: Transcending selves
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Introduction: Transcending Selves
35
Martin Fuchs

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Section 1.1: Relationships between selfhood and transcendence
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‘Vase of light’: from the exceptional individuality to the individualisation process as influenced by Greek-Arabic cosmology in Albert the Great’s Super Iohannem
53
Julie Casteigt

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Self-transcendence in Meister Eckhart
73
Dietmar Mieth

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The inward sublime: Kant’s aesthetics and the Protestant tradition
99
Magnus Schlette

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Transcendence and freedom: on the anthropological and cultural centrality of religion
141
Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt

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Taking Job as an example. Kierkegaard: traces of religious individualization
159
Matthias Engmann

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Suifaction: typological reflections on the evolution of the self
185
Anders Klostergaard Petersen

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Afterword: relationships between selfhood and transcendence
215
Julie Casteigt, Matthias Engmann, Elisabeth Gräb-Schmitt, Dietmar Mieth, Anders Klostergaard Petersen and Magnus Schlette

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Section 1.2: The social lives of religious individualisation
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‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house!’ (Gen. 12:1): Schelling’s Boehmian redefinition of idealism
223
Andrés Quero-Sánchez

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Dining with the gods and the others: the banqueting tickets from Palmyra as expressions of religious individualisation
243
Rubina Raja

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Self-affirmation, self-transcendence and the relationality of selves: the social embedment of individualisation in bhakti
257
Martin Fuchs

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Sufis, Jogis, and the question of religious difference: individualisation in early modern Punjab
289
Anne Murphy

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Afterword: the social lives of religious individualisation
315
Martin Fuchs, Anne Murphy, Andrés Quero-Sánchez and Rubina Raja

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Part 2: The dividual self
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Introduction: the dividual self
323
Antje Linkenbach and Martin Mulsow

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Section 2.1: Dividual socialities
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The subject as totum potestativum in Albert the Great’s OEuvre: cultural transfer and relational identity
347
Julie Casteigt

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Monism and dividualism in Meister Eckhart
363
Markus Vinzent

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The empathic subject and the question of dividuality
383
Antje Linkenbach

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Simmel and the forms of in-dividuality
409
Arthur Bueno

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Afterword: dividual socialities
437
Arthur Bueno, Julie Casteigt, Antje Linkenbach and Markus Vinzent

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Section 2.2: Parting the self
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Reading the self in Persian prose and poetry
443
Shahzad Bashir

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The good citizen and the heterodox self: turning to Protestantism and Anabaptism in 16th-century Venice
459
Riccarda Suitner

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Dividualisation and relational authorship: from the Huguenot République des lettres to practices of clandestine writing
475
Martin Mulsow

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Disunited identity. Kierkegaard: traces towards dividuality
497
Matthias Engmann

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Afterword: parting the self
513
Shahzad Bashir, Matthias Engmann, Martin Mulsow and Riccarda Suitner

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Section 2.3: Porosity, corporeality and the divine
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Paul’s Letter to Philemon: a case study in individualisation, dividuation, and partibility in Imperial spatial contexts
519
Harry O. Maier

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Self as other: distanciation and reflexivity in ancient Greek divination
541
Esther Eidinow

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The swirl of worlds: possession, porosity and embodiment
559
Aditya Malik

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‘Greater love …’: Methodist missionaries, self-sacrifice and relational personhood
583
Christine Dureau

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Challenging personhood: the subject and viewer of contemporary crucifixion iconography
603
Jutta Vinzent

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Afterword: porosity, corporeality and the divine
625
Christine Dureau, Esther Eidinow, Harry Maier, Aditya Malik and Jutta Vinzent

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Religious Individualisation Volume 2
Part 3: Conventions and contentions
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Introduction: conventions and contentions
633
Bernd-Christian Otto and Rahul Bjørn Parson

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Section 3.1: Practices
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Religious individualisation in China: a two-modal approach
643
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

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Individuals in the Eleusinian Mysteries: choices and actions
669
Ioanna Patera

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Institutionalisation of religious individualisation: asceticism in antiquity and late antiquity and the rejection of slavery and social injustice
695
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

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Lived religion and eucharistic piety on the Meuse and the Rhine in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
719
Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker

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Migrant precarity and religious individualisation
737
Michael Nijhawan

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The Illuminates of Thanateros and the institutionalisation of religious individualisation
759
Bernd-Christian Otto

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Afterword: practices
797
Carsten Hermann-Pillath, Anneke Mulder-Bakker, Michael Nijhawan, Bernd-Christian Otto, Ioanna Patera and Ilaria Ramelli

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Section 3.2: Texts and narratives
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‘… quod nolo, illud facio’ (Romans 7:20): institutionalising the unstable self
807
Ian H. Henderson

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Individualisation, deindividualisation, and institutionalisation among the early Mahānubhāvs
831
Anne Feldhaus

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Religious individualisation and collective bhakti: Sarala Dasa and Bhima Bhoi
847
Ishita Banerjee-Dube

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Individualisation and democratisation of knowledge in Banārasīdās’ Samayasāra Nāṭaka
865
Rahul Bjørn Parson

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Subjects of conversion in colonial central India
895
Saurabh Dube

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Many biographies – multiple individualities: the identities of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang
913
Max Deeg

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Jewish emancipation, religious individualisation, and metropolitan integration: a case study on Moses Mendelssohn and Moritz Lazarus
939
Sabine Sander

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Afterword: texts and narratives
963
Ishita Banerjee-Dube, Max Deeg, Saurabh Dube, Anne Feldhaus, Ian Henderson, Rahul Bjørn Parson and Sabine Sander

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Part 4: Authorities in religious individualisation
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Introduction: authorities in religious individualisation
971
Jörg Rüpke

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Section 4.1: Between hegemony & heterogeneity
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Subordinated religious specialism and individuation in the Graeco-Roman world
985
Richard Gordon

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Religion and the limits of individualisation in ancient Athens: Andocides, Socrates, and the fair-breasted Phryne
1009
Jan N. Bremmer

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Traveling with the Picatrix: cultural liminalities of science and magic
1033
Avner Ben-Zaken

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Singular individuals, conflicting authorities: Annie Besant and Mohandas Gandhi
1065
Kumkum Sangari

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Being Hindu in India: culture, religion, and the Gita Press (1950)
1097
Vasudha Dalmia

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Individualised versus institutional religion: Is there a mediating position?
1121
Veronika Hoffmann

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Constructing a genuine religious character: the impact of the asylum court on the Ahmadiyya community in Germany
1139
Michael Nijhawan

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Afterword: de- and neotraditionalisation
1165
Avner Ben-Zaken, Jan Bremmer, Vasudha Dalmia, Richard Gordon, Michael Nijhawan and Kumkum Sangari

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Section 4.2: Pluralisation
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Religious plurality and individual authority in the Mahābhārata
1173
Angelika Malinar

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Ritual objects and religious communication in lived ancient religion: multiplying religion
1201
Jörg Rüpke

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Institutionalisation of tradition and individualised lived Christian religion in Late Antiquity
1223
Luise Marion Frenkel

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Early modern erudition and religious individualisation: the case of Johann Zechendorff (1580–1662)
1255
Asaph Ben-Tov

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Islamic mystical responses to hegemonic orthodoxy: the subcontinental perspective
1269
Amit Dey

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Afterword: pluralisation
1291
Asaph Ben-Tov, Amit Dey, Luise Marion Frenkel, Angelika Malinar and Jörg Rüpke

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Section 4.3: Walking the edges
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Understanding ‘prophecy’: charisma, religious enthusiasm, and religious individualisation in the 17th century. A cross-cultural approach
1299
Cristiana Facchini

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Out of bounds, still in control: exclusion, religious individuation and individualisation during the later Middle Ages
1321
Katharina Ulrike Mersch

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The lonely antipope – or why we have difficulties classifying Pedro de Luna [Benedict XIII] as a religious individual
1351
Britta Müller-Schauenburg

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Varieties of spiritual individualisation in the theosophical movement: the United Lodge of theosophists India as climax of individualisation-processes within the theosophical movement
1365
Cornelia Haas

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Individualisation in conformity: Keshab Chandra Sen and canons of the self
1381
Vera Höke

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Afterword: walking the edges
1401
Cristiana Facchini, Cornelia Haas, Vera Höke, Katharina Mersch and Britta Müller-Schauenburg

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Contributors
1405

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

December 16, 2019

eBook ISBN:

9783110580853

Hardcover published on:

December 16, 2019

Hardcover ISBN:

9783110580013

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Front matter:

28

Main content:

1416

Illustrations:

1

Coloured Illustrations:

7

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110580853

eBook ISBN: 9783110580853

Hardcover ISBN: 9783110580013

Keywords for this book

Individualisation; self; religious experience; theory of religion

Audience(s) for this book

Students and scholars of religious studies; history; anthropology; philosophy; sociology; literary studies; theology

Creative Commons

BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Genthiner Straße 13
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Religious Individualisation

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Acknowledgements

Contents

General introduction

Introduction: Transcending Selves

‘Vase of light’: from the exceptional individuality to the individualisation process as influenced by Greek-Arabic cosmology in Albert the Great’s Super Iohannem

Self-transcendence in Meister Eckhart

The inward sublime: Kant’s aesthetics and the Protestant tradition

Transcendence and freedom: on the anthropological and cultural centrality of religion

Taking Job as an example. Kierkegaard: traces of religious individualization

Suifaction: typological reflections on the evolution of the self

Afterword: relationships between selfhood and transcendence

‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house!’ (Gen. 12:1): Schelling’s Boehmian redefinition of idealism

Dining with the gods and the others: the banqueting tickets from Palmyra as expressions of religious individualisation

Self-affirmation, self-transcendence and the relationality of selves: the social embedment of individualisation in bhakti

Sufis, Jogis, and the question of religious difference: individualisation in early modern Punjab

Afterword: the social lives of religious individualisation

Introduction: the dividual self

The subject as totum potestativum in Albert the Great’s OEuvre: cultural transfer and relational identity

Monism and dividualism in Meister Eckhart

The empathic subject and the question of dividuality

Simmel and the forms of in-dividuality

Afterword: dividual socialities

Reading the self in Persian prose and poetry

The good citizen and the heterodox self: turning to Protestantism and Anabaptism in 16th-century Venice

Dividualisation and relational authorship: from the Huguenot République des lettres to practices of clandestine writing

Disunited identity. Kierkegaard: traces towards dividuality

Afterword: parting the self

Paul’s Letter to Philemon: a case study in individualisation, dividuation, and partibility in Imperial spatial contexts

Self as other: distanciation and reflexivity in ancient Greek divination

The swirl of worlds: possession, porosity and embodiment

‘Greater love …’: Methodist missionaries, self-sacrifice and relational personhood

Challenging personhood: the subject and viewer of contemporary crucifixion iconography

Afterword: porosity, corporeality and the divine

Introduction: conventions and contentions

Religious individualisation in China: a two-modal approach

Individuals in the Eleusinian Mysteries: choices and actions

Institutionalisation of religious individualisation: asceticism in antiquity and late antiquity and the rejection of slavery and social injustice

Lived religion and eucharistic piety on the Meuse and the Rhine in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Migrant precarity and religious individualisation

The Illuminates of Thanateros and the institutionalisation of religious individualisation

Afterword: practices

‘… quod nolo, illud facio’ (Romans 7:20): institutionalising the unstable self

Individualisation, deindividualisation, and institutionalisation among the early Mahānubhāvs

Religious individualisation and collective bhakti: Sarala Dasa and Bhima Bhoi

Individualisation and democratisation of knowledge in Banārasīdās’ Samayasāra Nāṭaka

Subjects of conversion in colonial central India

Many biographies – multiple individualities: the identities of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang

Jewish emancipation, religious individualisation, and metropolitan integration: a case study on Moses Mendelssohn and Moritz Lazarus

Afterword: texts and narratives

Introduction: authorities in religious individualisation

Subordinated religious specialism and individuation in the Graeco-Roman world

Religion and the limits of individualisation in ancient Athens: Andocides, Socrates, and the fair-breasted Phryne

Traveling with the Picatrix: cultural liminalities of science and magic

Singular individuals, conflicting authorities: Annie Besant and Mohandas Gandhi

Being Hindu in India: culture, religion, and the Gita Press (1950)

Individualised versus institutional religion: Is there a mediating position?

Constructing a genuine religious character: the impact of the asylum court on the Ahmadiyya community in Germany

Afterword: de- and neotraditionalisation

Religious plurality and individual authority in the Mahābhārata

Ritual objects and religious communication in lived ancient religion: multiplying religion

Institutionalisation of tradition and individualised lived Christian religion in Late Antiquity

Early modern erudition and religious individualisation: the case of Johann Zechendorff (1580–1662)

Islamic mystical responses to hegemonic orthodoxy: the subcontinental perspective

Afterword: pluralisation

Understanding ‘prophecy’: charisma, religious enthusiasm, and religious individualisation in the 17th century. A cross-cultural approach

Out of bounds, still in control: exclusion, religious individuation and individualisation during the later Middle Ages

The lonely antipope – or why we have difficulties classifying Pedro de Luna [Benedict XIII] as a religious individual

Varieties of spiritual individualisation in the theosophical movement: the United Lodge of theosophists India as climax of individualisation-processes within the theosophical movement

Individualisation in conformity: Keshab Chandra Sen and canons of the self

Afterword: walking the edges

Contributors

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