About the Book
Bridging the gap between cognition and culture, this handbook explores both social scientific and humanities approaches to understanding the physical processes of religious life, tradition, practice, and belief. It reflects the cultural turn within the study of religion and puts theory to the fore, moving beyond traditional theological, philosophical, and ethnographic understandings of the aesthetics of religion.
Editors Anne Koch and Katharina Wilkens bring together research in cultural studies, cognitive studies, material religion, religion and the arts, and epistemology. Questions of identity, gender, ethnicity, and postcolonialism are discussed throughout. Key topics include materiality, embodiment, performance, popular/vernacular art and space to move beyond a sensory understanding of aesthetics. Emerging areas of research are covered, including secular aesthetics and the aesthetic of spirits.
This is an important contribution to theory and method in the study of religion, and is grounded in research that has been taking place in Europe over the past 20 years. Case studies are drawn from around the world with contributions from scholars based in Europe, the USA, and Australia. The book is illustrated with over 40 color images and features a foreword from Birgit Meyer.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Foreword by Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University, the Netherlands)
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction, Anne Koch (University College of Education, Linz, Austria) and Katharina Wilkens (University of Munich, Germany)
PART ONE: APPROACH
2. A Historiography of Aesthetics in a Western Context, Jay Johnston (University of Sydney, Australia)
3. Epistemology, Anne Koch (University College of Education, Linz, Austria)
4. Aesthetics of Knowledge, Arianna Borrelli (Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany) and Alexandra Grieser (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
5. Methodology, Jens Kreinath (Wichita State University, USA)
PART TWO: ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES
6. Imagination, Lucia Traut (University of Muenster, Germany) and Anne Wahl (University of Münster, Germany)
7. Ritual, Jesper Sørensen (Aarhus University, Denmark)
8. Absorption, T. M. Luhrmann (Stanford University, USA)
9. Aniconicity and Aniconism, Mikael Aktor (University of Southern Denmark, Demark)
10. Sonality, Annette Wilke (University of Münster, Germany)
11. Museality, Jens Kugele (International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), JLU Giessen, Germany)
PART THREE: STRATEGIES OF AESTHETIC FORMATIONS
12. Sensory Strategies, Hubert Mohr (University of Bremen, Germany)
13. Narrative Strategies, Dirk Johannsen (University of Oslo, Norway) and Anja Kirsch (University of Basel, Switzerland)
14. Text Acts, Katharina Wilkens (University of Munich, Germany)
15. Embodiment through Comics, Chris Klassen (Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
16. Gendered Performativity, Shaireen Rasheed (Long Island University, USA)
17. Art, Jay Johnston (University of Sydney, Australia)
18. Cinesthetics, Adrian Hermann (University of Bonn, Germany) and Yulia Lokshina (University of Bonn, Germany)
SECTION FOUR: AESTHETICSCAPES
19. Cult Images, Brigitte Luchesi (University of Bremen, Germany)
20. Smell as Communication, Esther-Maria Guggenmos (KHC Erlangen, Germany
and the Center for Chinese Studies, Taipei, Taiwan)
21. Sensing and Painting Knowledge, Isabel Laack (Heidelberg University, Germany)
22. Protestant (An)aesthetics, Robert Yelle (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany)
23. Aesthetics of the Ugly, Constanze Pabst von Ohain (University of Munich, Germany)
24. Aesthetics of the Secular, Stefan Binder (University of Goettingen, Germany)
25. Aesthetics of the Spirits, Peter J. Bräunlein (Leipzig University, Germany)
SECTION FIVE: AESTHETICS OF RELIGION IN THE CLASSROOM
26. Teaching Aesthetics of Religion, Isabel Laack (Heidelberg University, Germany) and Petra Tillessen (University of Bonn, Germany)
Notes
References
Index
About the Author :
Anne Koch is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Salzburg, Austria. She is co-editor of the Journal of Religion in Europe and a steering committee member of the Religion in Europe group at the American Academy of Religion.
Katharina Wilkens is Lecturer in the Study of Religion at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany.
Review :
"In this wide-ranging new volume, Anne Koch and Katharina Wilkens curate a capacious collection of researchers at the forefront of body-based religious knowledge. Contributors open up new lines of enquiry that bridge social scientific and humanities approaches to religious life, tradition, practice, and maybe even belief. This is a useful work that helps to establish an emerging area.”
"This handbook convenes an impressively international array of authors, all leading scholars on the embodied nature of religious and spiritual practices. Unlike many volumes on this topic, it [LC1] self-confidently engages cutting-edge cognitive approaches while remaining firmly rooted in the methodologies and theoretical commitments of the humanities and cultural sciences. No scholar who works on the visuality, corporeality, and emotionality of religious practice in any tradition—be it sensorially rich or austere—can afford to bypass this collection.”
