Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power(15 Global Asia)

What makes sounds “religious”? How are communities shaped by the things they hear, play, or listen to? This book foregrounds connections between sounds, bodies, and media in the private and public life of communities beyond the Global North, analyzing diverse configurations of the category of sound and various sonic ontologies to usher in a more inclusive global anthro-history of religious sounds. This edited volume implements a “sonic turn” in the study of religion by engaging with a diversity of auditory, musical, and embodied practices. Dislodging the Global North as the main point of reference for studies on religious sound, this volume proposes an acoustemology of the post-secular with an emphasis on Asia as method. Unsettling and expanding existing discussions on senses, media, and power, editors Carola E. Lorea and Rosalind I. J. Hackett present religious sounds as co-creating subjectivities and collectivities that coalesce around audible aesthetic formations. This volume demonstrates that religious sounds are not only produced by certain religious traditions but also produce communities, shaping the self and sensitivity of those who participate.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Audiovisual Samples Introduction - Carola E. Lorea The Potential of a Sonic Turn: Towards an Acoustemology of the Post-Secular Section I - Sounds of Tongues and Hearts: Semiotic Ideologies and Devotional Bodies Chapter 1 - Alvin Eng Hui Lim - Speaking in Tongues in Comparative Contexts and Their Digital Soundscapes Chapter 2 - Marco Romano Coppola - Sonic Ways to Embodied Remembrance: Sufi dhikr in an Italian Roma Camp Chapter 3 - Sukanya Sarbadhikary - Aural Auras of Inner Sounds: Conch Shells, Ritual Instruments, and Devotional Bodies Section II - Gendering Religious Sounds: Agency, Ritual Spaces, and Sonic Piety Chapter 4 - Epsita Halder - Sounding Pain: Public-Private Aspects of Shia Women’s Sonic Practices in Muharram Chapter 5 - Rosalind I. J. Hackett - Sounds Electronic: New Sonic Mediations of Gender and Spiritual Empowerment Chapter 6 - Pei-ling Huang - Sounding Remembrance, Voicing Mourning: Material, Ethical, and Gendered Productions of a New Voice in Shah Jo Rag Chapter 7 - Talieh Wartner-Attarzadeh & Sarah Weiss - Sonic Gendering of Ritual Spaces Section III - Travelling Sounds: Across Boundaries and Borderlands Chapter 8 - Kazi Fahmida Farzana, Peter Sammonds & Bayes Ahmed - Sounding Resilience and Resistance: Tarana Songs of Rohingya Refugees in Malaysia Chapter 9 - Tasaw Hsin-chun Lu - Festival as Ritual and Ritual in Festival: Sounding “Exotic Borderlands” in Northern Taiwan Chapter 10 - Ben Krakauer - Music as Epistemic Bulwark in West Bengal Section IV - Sonic Politics: Hearing Identity Chapter 11 - Orlando Woods - The Power and the Politics of Embodying Dancehall: Reconciling Sonic Affect and the Religious Self in Singapore Chapter 12 - Citra Aryandari - Performing vs Recording: The Sound of Modern Bali Chapter 13 - David Henley - Amplified Waves: The Politics of Religious Sound in Indonesia and Beyond Section V - Ensoudment and/As Embodiment: Notes and Noises of Ritual Performance Chapter 14 - Kenneth Dean - A Theory of Ritual Polyphony in Chinese Religious Performances Chapter 15 - Nathan Porath - The Ensoundments of the Materially Ethereal in Indigenous Riau (Sumatra) Chapter 16 - Eben Graves - Bodies with Songs: The Sounds and Politics of Interstitial Lyrics in Bengali Devotional Performance Afterword - Patrick Eisenlohr

About the Author :
Carola E. Lorea is Assistant Professor of Rethinking Global Religion at the University of Tübingen. She worked as a research fellow at NUS Asia Research Institute, International Institute for Asian Studies, Gonda Foundation, and Südasien-Institut (Heidelberg). Her first monograph is Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman (2016). Rosalind I. J. Hackett is Extraordinary Professor, Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Chancellor’s Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee. She is Past President and Honorary Life Member, International Association for the History of Religions.