Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion PDF Author: Dirk Johannsen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900442167X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion presents the aesthetics of narrativity in religious contexts by approaching narrative acts as situated modes of engaging with reality, equally shaped by the immersive character of the stories told and the sensory qualities of their performances. Introducing narrative cultures as an integrative framework of analysis, the volume builds a bridge between classical content-based approaches to narrative sources and the aesthetic study of religions as constituted by sensory and mediated practices. Studying stories in conjunction with the role that performative acts of storytelling play in the cultivation of the senses, the contributors explore the efficacy of storytelling formats in narrative cultures from ancient times until today, in regions and cultures across the globe. Contributors are: Stefan Binder, Arianna Borrelli, Markus Altena Davidsen, Laura Feldt, Ingvild Sælid Gilhus, Dirk Johannsen, Jens Kreinath, Isabel Laack, Martin Lehnert, Brigitte Luchesi, Bastiaan van Rijn, Caroline Widmer, Annette Wilke, Katharina Wilkens.

Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion PDF Author: Dirk Johannsen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900442167X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion presents the aesthetics of narrativity in religious contexts by approaching narrative acts as situated modes of engaging with reality, equally shaped by the immersive character of the stories told and the sensory qualities of their performances. Introducing narrative cultures as an integrative framework of analysis, the volume builds a bridge between classical content-based approaches to narrative sources and the aesthetic study of religions as constituted by sensory and mediated practices. Studying stories in conjunction with the role that performative acts of storytelling play in the cultivation of the senses, the contributors explore the efficacy of storytelling formats in narrative cultures from ancient times until today, in regions and cultures across the globe. Contributors are: Stefan Binder, Arianna Borrelli, Markus Altena Davidsen, Laura Feldt, Ingvild Sælid Gilhus, Dirk Johannsen, Jens Kreinath, Isabel Laack, Martin Lehnert, Brigitte Luchesi, Bastiaan van Rijn, Caroline Widmer, Annette Wilke, Katharina Wilkens.

Religion and Film

Religion and Film PDF Author: S. Brent Plate
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545797
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Religion and cinema share a capacity for world making, ritualizing, mythologizing, and creating sacred time and space. Through cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, and other production activities, film takes the world “out there” and refashions it. Religion achieves similar ends by setting apart particular objects and periods of time, telling stories, and gathering people together for communal actions and concentrated focus. The result of both cinema and religious practice is a re-created world: a world of fantasy, a world of ideology, a world we long to live in, or a world we wish to avoid at all costs. Religion and Film introduces readers to both religious studies and film studies by focusing on the formal similarities between cinema and religious practices and on the ways they each re-create the world. Explorations of film show how the cinematic experience relies on similar aesthetic devices on which religious rituals have long relied: sight, sound, the taste of food, the body, and communal experience. Meanwhile, a deeper understanding of the aesthetic nature of religious rituals can alter our understanding of film production. Utilizing terminology and theoretical insights from the study of religion as well as the study of film, Religion and Film shows that by paying attention to the ways films are constructed, we can shed new light on the ways religious myths and rituals are constructed and vice versa. This thoroughly revised and expanded new edition is designed to appeal to the needs of courses in religion as well as film departments. In addition to two new chapters, this edition has been restructured into three distinct sections that offer students and instructors theories and methods for thinking about cinema in ways that more fully connect film studies with religious studies.

Aesthetics of Religion

Aesthetics of Religion PDF Author: Alexandra K. Grieser
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110460459
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates that aesthetics, as a theory of sensory knowledge, offers an elaborate repertoire of concepts that can help to understand religious traditions. These approaches take into account contemporary developments in scientific theories of perception, neuro-aesthetics and cultural studies, highlighting the socio-cultural and political context informing how humans perceive themselves and the world around them. Developing since the 1990s, the aesthetic approach has responded to debates in the study of religion, in particular striving to overcome biased categories that confined religion either to texts and abstract beliefs, or to an indisputable sui generis mode of experience. This volume documents what has been achieved to date, its significance for the study of religion and for interdisciplinary scholarship.

Spirit in the Dark

Spirit in the Dark PDF Author: Josef Sorett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
While many of the most significant black intellectual movements of the second half of the twentieth century have been perceived as secular, Josef Sorett demonstrates in this book that religion was actually a fertile, fluid and formidable force within these movements. Spirit in the Dark examines how African American literary visions were animated and organized by religion and spirituality, from the New Negro Renaissance of the 1920s to the Black Arts movement of the 1960s.

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts PDF Author: Frank Burch Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190871199
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 565

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Book Description
This volume offers 37 original essays from leading scholars on the crucial topics, issues, methods, and resources for studying and teaching religion and the arts.

Stag and Stone

Stag and Stone PDF Author: Jay Johnston
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (Indonesia)
ISBN: 9781781793381
Category : Archaeology and religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Stag and Stone: Religion, Archaeology and Esoteric Aesthetics is a timely and innovative evaluation of the interdisciplinary dialogue between religious studies and archaeology. Investigating the core concepts of materiality, perception, ritual and agency the volume redefines conceptual categories and argues for the need of 'critical bewilderment' as a unique scholarly practice. The pioneering intersubjective methodology brings together recent developments in religious aesthetics, theoretical archaeology and cultural studies. Taking as its focus 'troublesome' objects and places - those deemed ambiguous in purpose and meaning - the individual case studies contribute new knowledge to a range of areas including the archaeology of shamanism, contemporary art and early medieval Norse and Insular material culture. Stag and Stone offers useful insights to upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the areas of heritage and cultural studies, theoretical archaeology, animal studies, religious studies and art history.

Illness as Many Narratives

Illness as Many Narratives PDF Author: Stella Bolaki
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474402437
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world. In what ways can they be seen to have aesthetic, ethical and political value? What do they reveal about experiences of illness, the relationship between the body and identity and the role of the arts in bearing witness to illness for people who are ill and those connected to them? How can they influence medicine, the arts and shape public understandings of health and illness? These questions and more are explored in Illness as Many Narratives, which contains readings of a rich array of representations of illness from the 1980s to the present. A wide range of arts and media are considered such as life writing, photography, performance, film, theatre, artists' books and animation. The individual chapters deploy multidisciplinary critical frameworks and discuss physical and mental illness. Through reading this book you will gain an understanding of the complex contribution illness narratives make to contemporary culture and the emergent field of Critical Medical Humanities.

Theologies of Fear in Early Greek Epic

Theologies of Fear in Early Greek Epic PDF Author: Carman Romano
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040131697
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This book explores the theological significance of horror elements in the works of Hesiod and in the Homeric Hymns for the characters within these poems, the mortal audience consuming them, and the poet responsible for mythopoesis. Theologies of Fear in Early Greek Epic argues that just as modern supernatural horror fiction can be analyzed to reveal popular conceptions of the divine, so too can the horrific elements in early Greek epic. Romano develops this analogy to show how myth-makers chose to include, omit, or nuance horror elements from their narratives in order to communicate theological messages. By employing methodological approaches from religious studies, classical studies, and literary studies of supernatural horror fiction, this book brings a fresh perspective to our understanding of how the Greeks viewed their gods and how poets helped to create that view. Theologies of Fear in Early Greek Epic will be of interest to scholars in classical studies, religious studies, and comparative literature, as well as students in courses on myth, religion, and Greek culture and society.

Narrative, Identity and Ethics in Postcolonial Kenya

Narrative, Identity and Ethics in Postcolonial Kenya PDF Author: Eleanor Tiplady Higgs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135012981X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women's organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development? Based on a case study of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: 'everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory's implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology. Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA's narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of 'fulfilled lives', as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women's experiences of reproductive injustice.

Religious Narratives in Contemporary Culture

Religious Narratives in Contemporary Culture PDF Author: Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
Publisher: Studies in Religion and the Ar
ISBN: 9789004453746
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
"This book analyses the meaning and role of religion in western cultural practices in the twenty-first century. This inquiry situates itself at the intersection between cultural memory studies and the transmedial study of narrative and art"--