"The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion places objects and bodies at the center of scholarly studies of religious life and practice. Propelling forward the study of material religion, the Handbook first reveals the deep philosophical roots of its key categories and then advances new critical analytics, such as queer materialities, inescapable material entanglements, and hyperobjects that explode the small-scale personal view on religions. The Handbook comprises thirty chapters, written by an international team of contributors who offer a global perspective of religious pasts and presents, divided into four thematic parts: Genealogies of Material Religion Materializing the Terms of the Study of Religion Entanglements, Entrapment, Escaping Hyperobjects, or How Ginormous Things Affect Religions In these four parts, the study of material religion is redirected towards systematic, critical interrogations of the imbrication of religious structures of power with racial, economic, political, and gendered forms of domination. From Spinoza's political theology to African philosophies of ubuntu; from the queer materialities of Mesoamerican religion to the Satanic Temple of the United States; from Islamic love and sacrifice in human-animal entanglements to Shiamilitants' attachment to weaponry; from epidemic cataclysm in Latin America to vast infrastructures and the gathering of millions in India's Kumbh Mela, the study of material religion proves to be the study par excellence of the human condition. The Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, anthropology, history, and media studies, and will also be of interest to those in related fields such as archeology, sociology, and philosophy"--
The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion places objects and bodies at the center of scholarly studies of religious life and practice.
Propelling forward the study of material religion, the Handbook first reveals the deep philosophical roots of its key categories and then advances new critical analytics, such as queer materialities, inescapable material entanglements, and hyperobjects that explode the small-scale personal view on religions.
The Handbook comprises thirty chapters, written by an international team of contributors who offer a global perspective of religious pasts and presents, divided into four thematic parts:
- Genealogies of Material Religion
- Materializing the Terms of the Study of Religion
- Entanglements, Entrapment, Escaping
- Hyperobjects, or How Ginormous Things Affect Religions
In these four parts, the study of material religion is redirected towards systematic, critical interrogations of the imbrication of religious structures of power with racial, economic, political, and gendered forms of domination.
From Spinozas political theology to African philosophies of ubuntu; from the queer materialities of Mesoamerican religion to the Satanic Temple of the United States; from Islamic love and sacrifice in human-animal entanglements to Shia militants attachment to weaponry; from epidemic cataclysm in Latin America to vast infrastructures and the gathering of millions in Indias Kumbh Mela, the study of material religion proves to be the study par excellence of the human condition.
The Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, anthropology, history, and media studies, and will also be of interest to those in related fields such as archeology, sociology, and philosophy.
This volume places objects and bodies at the center of scholarly studies of religious life and practice. The Handbook reveals the deep philosophical roots of its key categories and then advances new critical analytics, such as queer materialities, inescapable material entanglements, and hyperobjects.
Editors' Introduction: The Pasts, Presents, and Futures of the Study of
Material Religion, Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Jennifer Scheper Hughes, S. Brent
Rodrķguez-Plate Part I: Genealogies of Material Religion 1.1 Spinoza:
Arch-Father of the Material-Religion Approach, Pooyan Tamimi Arab 1.2
Material Theories in Japanese Buddhism: What Kkai and Dgen Thought About
Things, Pamela D. Winfield 1.3 Gender, Ritual, and Dancing Images: Jane E.
Harrisons Aesthetic Approaches to the Materiality of Religion, Ulrike
Brunotte 1.4 The Philosophy of Ubuntu and Material Religion in Africa:
Engaging Henry Rowleys Mid-Nineteenth-Century Perspective on the Materiality
of Religion, Kapya John Kaoma 1.5 Mesoamerican Nightlife and the Queer
Materialities of Religion, Xiomara Verenice Cervantes-Gómez 1.6 Comparison
after Materiality, Johan Strijdom Part II: Materializing the Terms of the
Study of Religion 2.1 Books in Religious Studies: From Relentless Textualism
to Embodied Practices, Katja Rakow 2.2 Of Manuscripts That Cant Be Read and
Roads That Cant Be Seen: Historical Matters among Chams in Cambodia, Emiko
Stock 2.3 The Recursivity of the Fetish
Roger Sansi 2.4 Animism? Animated? Ensouled? The Active Lives of Balinese
Masks, Laurel Kendall and Ni Wayan Pasek Ariati 2.5 "Brainsmithing" African
Material Religion, Allen F. Roberts and Mary "Polly" Nooter Roberts 2.6
Crossing Heritage: Material Religion at the Humboldt Forum, Duane Jethro 2.7
Material God Mengdu: A Symbol and Real Presence, Yohan Yoo 2.8 Three Sacred
Mouthfuls: Transformed and Transformative Materiality of Sacred Food in Hindu
Publics, Tulasi Srinivas 2.9 Dark Mirroring: The Satanic Temples Queer
Material Religion, Sharday C. Mosurinjohn Part III: Entanglements,
Entrapments, Escaping 3.1 The Entanglements of Religion and Things, Ian
Hodder 3.2 Measuring Entanglement in Material Traces of Ritualized
Interaction: Preferential Attachment in a Prehistoric Petroglyph
Distribution, Tom Froese and Emiliano Gallaga Murrieta 3.3 "Disentangling" as
an Everyday Practice: Material, Visual, Sacred, and Commodity features of
"Puja Things", Vineeta Sinha 3.4 Broken Buddhas: Reflections on
(Im)Materiality and Impermanence, S. Romi Mukherjee 3.5 Buddhist Practice,
Recreation, and Fun: Entanglements of Popular Culture and Material Religion,
Inken Prohl 3.6 Christmas Gifts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in
Santiago, Chile: From a Gift Economy to Commodity, Olaya Sanfuentes 3.7 The
Jewel of Men: Weaponry as Material Religion among Muslim Communities, Younes
Saramifar 3.8 Human-Animal Entanglements and the Anthropology of Sacrifice:
Practicing Qurbani in Mumbai, Shaheed Tayob 3.9 Borrando La Frontera: Ana
Teresa Fernįndezs Transborder Communion, Barbara Sostaita Part IV:
Hyperobjects, or How Ginormous Things Affect Religions 4.1 The Erie Canal and
the Birth of American Religion: Infrastructure as Hyperobject, S. Brent
Rodrķguez-Plate 4.2 The Kumbh Mel as Hyperobject: Sound, Scale, Nation,
Environment, Amanda Lucia 4.3 Sonic Religion: The Analysis of Atmospheric
Half-Things, Patrick Eisenlohr 4.4 Mortandad as Hyperobject: Colonial Death
Worlds and Epidemic Cataclysm in Las Américas, Jennifer Scheper Hughes 4.5
Virus as Hyperobject: Early Atlantic World Jews and Yellow Fever Epidemics,
Laura Arnold Leibman 4.6 On Human Extinction, Evander Price. Index
Pooyan Tamimi Arab is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University.
Jennifer Scheper Hughes is Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Riverside.
S. Brent Rodrķguez-Plate is Professor, by special appointment, at Hamilton College, NY.
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