This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the University of Oslo and Utrecht University. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are known to privilege words over images. This book shows, however, that the reality is more complex. Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen explores the complex procedures used to render the invisible as visible and the elusive as tangible in these three traditions. Working from different disciplinary angles, contributors reflect on figuration and sensation in biblical culture, medieval Jewish culture, the imagination of the unseen in Islamic settings, Christian assaults on 'idolatry' in Africa, baroque and modern Church art, contemporary Eastern Orthodox tradition, photography on the East African coast, European opera and literature, and more. The book shows that the three religious traditions have formed sensorial regimes: embodied habits, traditions and standards for seeing, sensing, displaying, and figuring that which could not, or should not, be seen. So, the desire for seeing the invisible and experiencing the beyond are paradoxically confirmed, contested and controlled, by the sensorial regimes in vogue. This carries over even into secularized use of religious figurations in arts and literature. Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen is important reading for scholars of anthropology, religious studies, Jewish studies, Christian studies, Islamic studies, art history, cultural studies, biblical studies and archaeology.
Les mer
Introduction: Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam Part I: Reconfiguring the Image Question 1. Imagining Solomon’s Temple: Aesthetics of the Non-Representable, Terje Stordalen (University of Oslo, Norway) 2. Seeing with the Ear, Recognizing with the Heart: Rethinking the Ontology of the Mimetic Arts in Islam, Wendy Shaw (Free University Berlin, Germany) 3. The Hypericon of the Golden Calf, Yvonne Sherwood (University of Kent, UK) 4. Idolatry Beyond the Second Commandment: Conflicting Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen, Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) Part II: Genealogies of Figuration 5: Beyond ‘Image Ban’ and ‘Aniconism’: Reconfiguring Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Religion(s) in a Visual and Material Religion Perspective, Christoph Uehlinger (University of Zürich, Switzerland) 6. Visual Images in Medieval Jewish Culture Before the Age of Art, Kalman P. Bland (Duke University, USA) 7: Real Absence: Images of God in Turco-Persian Painting, 1300–1600 CE, Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan, USA) 8. Celestial Desires: Figuration and Sensation in Persian Devotional Shiite Mural Paintings, Pedram Khosronejad (Oklahoma State University, USA) Part III: Figurations and Sensations – Lives and Regimes 9: Aesthetic Sensations of Mary: The Miraculous Icon of Meryem Ana and the Dynamics of Interreligious Relations in Antakya, Jens Kreinath (Wichitia State University, USA) 10: Photographic Practices and the 'Aesthetics of Withdrawal' among Muslims of the East African Coast, Heike Behrend (University of Cologne, Germany) 11: Moulded Imaginaries: Icons, Idols, and the Sensory Environments of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Sonja Luehrmann (Simon Fraser University, Canada) Part IV: Desires for the Unseen: Art and Religion 12: From Ponte St. Angelo to the Cathedral of St. Peter: Figuration and Sensation in Bernini's Pilgrimage Path in Rome, Øyvind Norderval (University of Oslo, Norway) 13: Figuration and ?Aesthetics of the Sublime': Aspects of their Interplay in Christian Art, Else Marie Bukdahl (University of Aalborg, Denmark) 14: Seeing, Hearing, and Narrating Salome. Modernist Sensual Aesthetics and the Role of Narrative Blanks, Ulrike Brunotte (Maastricht University, the Netherlands) 15: The Art of Incarnation: Loss and Return of Religion in Houellebecq's Submission, Christiane Kruse (Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Germany) Afterword, The Visual Culture of Revelation, David Morgan (Duke University, USA) Bibliography Index
Les mer
Ambitious ... highly interesting.
Argues that the common perception that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are aniconic and text-centered is problematic, and examines practices of figuration and sensation in these traditions.
Challenges common assumptions that the monotheistic traditions do not have material representations of the supernatural world
Advisory Editors: Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), David Morgan (Duke University, USA), S. Brent Plate (Hamilton College, USA), Crispin Paine (University College London, UK), Katja Rakow (Utrecht University, The Netherlands). Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion is the first book series dedicated exclusively to studies in material religion. Within the field of lived religion, the series is concerned with the material things with which people do religion, and how these things – objects, buildings, landscapes – relate to people, their bodies, clothes, food, actions, thoughts and emotions. The series engages and advances theories in ‘sensuous’ and ‘experiential’ religion, as well as informing museum practices and influencing wider cultural understandings with relation to religious objects and performances. Books in the series are at the cutting edge of debates as well as developments in fields including religious studies, anthropology, museum studies, art history, and material culture studies.
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781350078635
Publisert
2019-06-13
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Vekt
868 gr
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
352

Om bidragsyterne

Birgit Meyer is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. Terje Stordalen is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Law, Aalborg University, Denmark.