Key Terms in Material Religion

Material religion is a rapidly growing field, and this volume offers an accessible, critical entry into these new areas of research. Each "key term" uses case studies and is accompanied by a color image – an object, practice, space, or site. The entries cut across geographies, histories, and traditions, offering a versatile and engaging text for the classroom.

Key topics covered include:

- Icon, ritual, magic, gender, race
- Sacred, spirit, technology,
- Space, belief, body, brain
- Taste, touch, smell, sound, vision

Each entry demonstrates in clear and jargon-free prose how the key term figures prominently in understanding the materiality of religion. Written by leading international scholars, all entries are linked by the ways materiality stands at the forefront of the understanding of religion, whether that comes from humanistic, social scientific, artistic, curatorial, or other perspectives. Brent Plate brings his expertise and extensive teaching experience to the comprehensive introduction which introduces students to the themes and methods of the material cultural study of religion.

Key Terms in Material Religion provides a much-needed resource for courses on theory and method in religious studies, the anthropology of religion, and the ever-increasing number of courses focused on material religion.

S. Brent Plate is visiting associate professor of religious studies, Hamilton College, USA. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief. His publications include The History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects, Religion and Film, and The Religion and Film Reader.

Introduction to Material Religion, Brent Plate
1. Aesthetics, Inken Prohl (Professor of Religious Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany)
2. Art/work - Chris Pinney (Professor of Anthropology and Visual Culture, UCL, UK)
3. Aura - Michael Taussig (Professor of Anthropology, European Graduate School, Switzerland, and Columbia University, NY, USA)
4. Belief - Bob Orsi (Professor of Religion, Northwestern University, USA)
5. Body - Angela Zito (Professor of Anthropology and Religious Studies, New York University, USA)
6. Brain/mind - Ann Taves (Professor of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
7. Collection - Crispin Paine (Honorary Lecturer, UCL, UK)
8. Charisma - Thomas Kirsch (Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Konstanz, Germany)
9. Display – Ivan Gaskell (Professor of Cultural History and Museum Studies; Curator and Head of the Focus Gallery Project, Bard Graduate Centre, USA)
10. Dress - Mary Brooks (Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK)
11. Emotion – Jon Kieschnick (Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University, USA)
12. Fetish - Bruno Latour (Professor at Sciences Po Paris, France)
13. Form - Gretchen Buggeln (Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts, Associate Professor of Art History and Humanities)
14. Gender - Lauren Winner (Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality at Duke Divinity School, USA)
15. Hybridity/ transculturation – Courtney Bender (Associate Professor of Religion, Columbia University, USA)
16. Icon/image - Robert Maniura (Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Birkbeck, University of London, UK)
17. Interface - Mark C Taylor (Chair and Professor in the Department of Religion, Columbia University, USA)
18. Magic - Peter Pels (Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
19. Maps – Lily Kong (Vice President, National University of Singapore)
20. Medium - Birgit Meyer (Professor of Religious Studies, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands)
21. Memory – Oren Stier (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Florida International University, USA)
22. Movement - Ann Pelligrini (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, New York University, USA)
23. Ritual - Ron Grimes (Director of Ritual Studies International and Professor Emeritus of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
24. Sacred - David Chidester (Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Cape Town, South Africa)
25. Screen - Patricia Spyer (Professor, University of Leiden, the Netherlands)
26. Sensation - David Howes (Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University, Canada)
27. Sign - Wei-Cheng Lin (Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
28. Smell - James McHugh (Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Southern California, USA)
29. Sound - Isaac Weiner (Assistant Professor in Religious Studies, Ohio State University, USA)
30. Space - Tom Tweed (Professor, Harold and Martha Welch Endowed Chair in American Studies, University of Notre Dame, USA)
31. Spirit - Peter van der Veer (Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen, Germany)
32. Style - Birgit Meyer (Professor of Religious Studies, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands)
33. Taste - Rich Freeman (Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Religious Studies, USA)
34. Technology - Peter Horsfield (Professor of Communication, RMIT University, Australia)
35. Thing - David Morgan (Professor of Religious Studies, Duke University, USA)
36. Touch - Marleen de Witte (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
37. Transcendence - Hent de Vries (Director of the Humanities Centre, John Hopkins University, USA)
38. Value - Fred Myers (Professor of Anthropology, New York University, USA)
39. Vision - William A. Christian (Independent Scholar, based in Spain)
40. Words - Brent Plate (Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College, USA)
Bibliography
Index

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Key Terms in Material Religion

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials