Multisensory Religious Imaginaries: Object, Body, Veneration

optional courses

During the course we will discuss the anthropological literature and movies regarding the material and sensual dimensions of lived religion. To understand how religious imaginaries are socially constructed we will focus especially on the problem of religious socialization. Among the religious phenomenon which we'll examine more closely are e.g. the veneration and agency of relics (images and statues), possession, ascetism, pilgrimage, religious healing, charisma and authority.

We would define religion primarily as a practice of mediating between the transcendent and the immanent perceiving visual and material carriers of holiness as both: expression of culturally determined religious imaginaries and means that religiously socialize the faithful.

The aim of the course is: 1) to familiarize the students with interesting case studies of religious imaginaries 2) to gain an understanding of diverse anthropological theories on vernacular religiosity with the intention to discern important epistemological premises underlying a particular anthropologist's conceptual apparatus.

This course will discuss the anthropological literature and movies regarding the material and sensual dimensions of lived religion. To understand how religious imaginaries are socially constructed we will focus especially on the problem of religious socialization. Among the religious phenomenon which we'll examine more closely are e.g. the veneration and agency of relics (images and statues), possession, ascetism, pilgrimage, religious healing, charisma and authority.

The course offers anthropological theoretical insights that attempt to overcome dichotomous distinctions of: body/mind, subject/object, spirituality/embodiment, sacred/profane, religion/magic, faith/ritualism.

Throughout the course we will discuss the anthropological literature and movies regarding the material and sensual dimensions of lived religion. To understand how religious imaginaries are socially constructed we will focus especially on the problem of religious socialization. Among the religious phenomenon which we'll examine more closely are e.g. the veneration and agency of relics (images and statues), possession, ascetism, pilgrimage, religious healing, charisma and authority. The lecturer will also refer to case studies from her own ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bulgaria and Poland.

The course offers anthropological theoretical insights that attempt to overcome dichotomous distinctions of: body/mind, subject/object, spirituality/embodiment, sacred/profane, religion/magic, faith/ritualism.

We would define religion primarily as a practice of mediating between the transcendent and the immanent perceiving visual and material carriers of holiness as both: expression of culturally determined religious imaginaries and means that religiously socialize the faithful.

The aim of the course is: 1) to familiarize the students with interesting case studies of religious imaginaries related to a specific socio-cultural context 2) to gain an understanding of diverse anthropological theories on vernacular religiosity with the intention to discern important epistemological premises underlying a particular anthropologist's conceptual apparatus.

A detailed program for each class will be discussed with participants at the first meeting and made available on the shared google drive. There may be minor changes in the literature assigned to specific classes.

Asad T. (1993), The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, [w:] Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Th e John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore–London

Classen C. 1998. The Scented Womb and the Seminal Eye, [w:] The Color of Angels. Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imagination, London, New York: Routledge, ss.63-85.

Csordas T. 1990. Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology Ethos, Vol. 18, No. 1/1990, ss. 5-47

Csordas T., The Affliction of Martin [w:] Body/Meaning/Healing. New York: Palgrave 2002, ss. 100-137.

Engelke M. Dangerous Things. One African Genealogy [w:] Things, Religion and the Question of Materiality, red. D. Houtman, B. Meyer, Fordham University Press: NY, 2012, s. 40-62.

Ernst van den Hemel, Things that Matter: The Extra Calvinisticum, the Eucharist and John Calvin’s Unstable Materiality, [w:], Things, Religion and the Question of Materiality, red. D. Houtman, B. Meyer, Fordham University Press: NY, 2012 s. 62-76

Freedberg D. 1991. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, University of Chicago Press [excerpts].

Hanganu G. 2010. Eastern Christians and Religious Objects: Personal and Material Biographies Entangled, [w:] Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, red. Ch. Hann, H. Goltz, ss.33-55.

Holbraad M. The power of powder: multiplicity and motion in the divinatory cosmology of Cuban Ifá (or mana, again) [in:] Thinking Through Things, Routledge 2006

Keane W. (2008), The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion, “Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute” 14(1), s. 110–127.

Kollman P. (2018), What Can Theology Contribute to Cultural Anthropology?, [w:] The ecologically Engaged Anthropology, red. D.J. Lemons, Oxford University Press, Oxford, s. 83–101.

Lynch G. 2010. Object Theory. Toward an intersubjective, mediated and dynamic theory of religion, [w:] Religion and Material Culture. The Matter of Belief, London and New York: Routledge, ss. 40-54.

McDanell C. 1995. Material Christianity [w:] Material Christianity. Religion and Popular Culture in America, New Heaven, London: Yale University Press, ss. 1-16

McDanell C. 1995. Piety, Art, Fashion: The Religious Object, [w:] Material Christianity. Religion and popular cuture in America, New Heaven, London: Yale University Press, ss. 17-66.

Moezzi M. A. A. 2012. Icon and meditation: between popular art and sufism in imami shi’ism, [in:] The Art and the material culture of Iranian Shi’ism. Iconography and religious devotion in shi’i islam, ed. Pedram Khosronejad, London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 25-45

Kollman P. (2018), What Can Theology Contribute to Cultural Anthropology?, [w:] The ecologically Engaged Anthropology, red. D.J. Lemons, Oxford University Press, Oxford, s. 83–101.

Tanya M. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back. Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God , Vintage Books, New York 2012 (excerpt)

Morgan D. 2010. Materiality, social analysis and the study of religion, [w:] Religion and Material Culture. The Matter of Belief, London and New York: Routledge, ss. 55-74

Naumescu V. (2018), Syriac as a Lingua Sacra: Speaking the Language of Christ in India, [w:] Praying with the Senses. Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice, red. S. Luehrman, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, s. 103–119.

Nooter R. M. 2010. Tactiilty and transcendence. Epistemologies of touch in African arts and spiritualities, [w:] Religion and Material Culture. The Matter of Belief, London and New York: Routledge, ss. 79-96

Robert Orsi (2005), Material Children: Making God’s Presence Real for Catholic Boys and Girls and for the Adults in Relation to them [in:] Between Heaven and Earth. The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, ss. 73-109.

Robbins J. (2006), Anthropology and Theology: An Awkward Relationship? “Anthropological Quaterly” 79(2), s. 285–294.

Rock S. (2012/2013), Seeking Out Th e Sacred: Grace and Place in Contemporary Russian Pilgrimage, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, “Mediterranean, Slavic and Eastern Orthodox Studies”, 28/29, Minneapolis, s. 193-218.

Rountree C. 2006. Materializing Magical Power. Imagination, Agency and Intent in Feminist Witches’ Rituals, [w:] Materializng Religion. Expression, Performance and Ritual, red. Elisabeth Arweck, William Keenan, ss. 190-202

Walker Bynum C. 2011.Visual Matter [w:] Christian Materiality. As Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, ss. 37-124

Movies:

A drama television series "Young pope" (2016, Paolo Sorrentino)

"Mother Joan of Angels" (1961, Jerzy Kawalerowicz)

"Jesus Camp" (2006, Rachel Grady)

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• identify crucial anthropological concepts, theories, and debates related to the embodied and material religiosity

• develop analytical and critical thinking skills aimed at examining religious devotion in a specific socio-cultural context

• see and critically discuss connections between anthropological theories and "conditions of possibility" that legitimize them

• attendance and active participation in the classes (after exceeding two absences, it is necessary to prepare a synopsis of the texts discussed in the class at which the student was absent) = 50%

• presentation, e.g., in Power Point in the course of which the student will take up the challenge to demonstrate the ability to carry out an anthropological analysis of a chosen religious practice using a theoretical inspirations from the discussed literature = 50%