Religious Aesthetics

"Der Körper eines gefolterten Mannes ist seit dem 11ten Jh. visueller und affektiver Mittelpunkt des lateinischen Christentums. Die Darstellbarkeit des Christuskörpers ist gleichzeitig ein altes Streitthema und verweist auf das zentrale Thema der abendländischen Religionsgeschichte - die Fleischwerdung Gottes. Am Beispiel philippinischer Selbstkreuzigungsrituale und der Faszinationsgeschichte des Turiner Grabtuchs untersuche ich Obsessionen, die sich auf die Materialität des Christuskörpers richten und ihn nicht, wie theologisch üblich, metaphorisch und symbolisch entleiben.
Diese bis in die Gegenwart anhaltende Leidenschaft am tatsächlichen Fleisch und Blut Christi und an der Physiologie seiner Schmerzen ist weder archaischer Restbestand noch entstammt sie dem „Untergrund“ katholischer Frömmigkeit (Daxelmüller). Sie folgt vielmehr einer immanent angelegten Logik dieser Religion, die eben ohne die Gründungserzählung von Folter, erlittenem Schmerz, Hinrichtung und leibhaftiger Wiederauferstehung nicht denkbar ist. Die Heilsbotschaft dieser Religion ist untrennbar mit dem menschlichen Körper verbunden. Überdies erzeugt die Behauptung der Doppelnatur Christi eine stete Spannung zwischen Körper und Bild, zwischen unsichtbarem und sichtbarem Körper, und wirkt jenseits der Religionsgeschichte auf vielfältige Konfigurationen europäischer Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte. "

“Bantu Religion“ is an abstraction, an ideal-type of the consensus between different forms among the Bantu peoples. With the arrival of Bantu people in Brazil five centuries ago, a process of amalgamation began. Core features and structure have reasserted themselves interacting with non-Bantu religious and cultures around, assimilating ideas and practices. According to a systemic theory of syncretism this follows definite rules. It will be shown that Umbanda has preserved a core of Bantu beliefs, ritual practises and spiritual perceptions, in spite of all syncretistic adoptions. Thus Umbanda remains essentially a vital and complex Bantu Traditional Religion in a largely non-Bantu cultural environment persevering in an ongoing syncretistic process. It is thus a source for the retrieval of an ideal-type of African Traditional Religion. In this analytical perspective the comparison of rituals by the water in Umbanda and in South African Bantu culture presented in this study discloses a deeper understanding of their meaning and essence.

Can we relate, in a meaningful way, contemporary art and Orthodox Christianity? Is there something that Orthodox theology can learn from modern and contemporary art? And how about contemporary art learning something from Orthodox tradition and its centuries-long artistic heritage, including its image theory? Is there a way to bring these seemingly very distant fields into a closer contact and, perhaps, a productive dialogue?

Birgit Meyer's Sensational Movies brings together some of the signal themes that have defined her scholarly career at the intersection of Pentecostalism in Africa and the material mediation of religious life. Her ethnographic study of the burgeoning Ghanaian film industry focuses on the ways in which film not only reflects the local moral imagination at a time of social change but also helps to shape and literally produce new forms of imagination that combine, for example, the dualistic Pentecostal ethos with self-conscious stylistic modernism and contested nostalgia for the rural African past. Meyer carefully details both the market forces that constrain film-makers to produce certain kinds of films and the contested cultural politics of African self-representation. The result is a model ethnography for dealing with the complexities of modern cultural production while managing to avoid the all-too-easy collapse into fashionable postmodern solipsism. Meyer does not ignore the films or the filmic imaginary, but she pays attention to the people and sociopolitical contexts behind film production as well. This is crucial, because it allows Meyer to weigh in on some of the major theoretical issues running through today's anthropology of religion. Sensational Movies is the work of a mature scholar who has learned to cut through the Gordian knots of protracted scholarly debate in just a few elegant sentences. While she clearly is interested in the lived experience that transcends mere interpretation of cultures, for

"Schiller and Aesthetic Catholicism". In Schiller’s work there are many passages drawing on experiences, beliefs, symbols and practices stemming from the Catholic religion. Word of his crypto-Catholicism (he was Protestant) spread during the whole nineteenth century. The central concern of this article is to show why and to what extent figures and subjects related to aesthetic Catholicism recur in his works, revealing an original approach to the fundamental question of Kunstreligion. Schiller is aware of the deep relationship between aesthetics and religion, which means that confessional diversity, to him, implies that art can perform a variety of forms and functions. Moreover, his insistence on the theme of suggestion and his fascination with Catholic imagery are features which bring him close to the writers of the Romantic movement. The first part of the paper highlights the great presence of Catholic subjects in Schiller’s poetic and dramatic work, in particular by focusing on Don Carlos, The Ghost-Seer and Mary Stuart, while the following parts, centred on philosophical and poetological reflections, describe the development of his distinct aesthetic point of view on religion.

The first Shiʿi leader with true political power – although it was limited in space and time – after the death of ʿAli b. Abī Ṭālib was al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd (d. 67/687). In this paper, I will argue that one reason why he succeeded in his political ambitions was that he legitimized his endeavor by deferring to ʿAli. In doing this he set a precedent for all future Shiʿi leadership. Al-Mukhtār gained authority by convincing his followers about his function as mediator between the people and the deceased ʿAli, who was still supposed to be alive and active in one way or another by many Shiʿis. As a tool of analysis I use the notion of religious aesthetics as it has been developed by Birgit Meyer and others. Meyer regards religion as a practice of mediation between the temporal and the perceived transcendental worlds, a mediation that is performed by appealing to all human senses through various media. The person in control of these media has the power to distribute and withhold religious sensations generated in the devotees; what Meyer calls “the aesthetics of persuasion”. In the paper, I will investigate three instruments of mediation used by al-Mukhtār: a living human being, a religio-political action, and an artefact. The first is his claim to act on behalf of ʿAli’s son Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya, whom he called al-mahdī, “the rightly guided”; the second, his call to revenge for ʿAli’s son al-Ḥusayn; and the third, his claim that he was in possession of an ʿAlid relic, a chair that had belonged to ʿAli. I will briefly argue that the accounts of these three instruments most probably reflect a historical reality. Of these three, in particular the designation of a mahdī was a feature that became influential in shaping Shiʿite patterns of authority in the centuries to follow.

This paper challenges the general approach to Kierkegaard’s s engagement with imitation, which privileges a strictly religious reading. Heretofore imitation has been apprehended as a coherent concept shaped within the context of imitatio Christi in the devotio moderna. I locate Kierkegaard ’ s writings in the broader context of mimesis. Analyzing particular mimetic structures woven into the text, I show that a plurality of imitative models that are different from Christ occurs therein. Addressing the distinction between the religious and the aesthetic in Kierkegaard, I inquire into the status of these imitative models. Referring to the term “ Mellembestemmelserne ” and “ ekphrasis ”— the rhetorical device of aesthetics — I show that the other models of imitation exhibit supportive roles to the highest type of prototype (Christ) and therefore question the solely religious rendering of mimesis and the aesthetic confines of Kierkegaard ’ s concept of aesthetics.

El feminismo espiritual aparece en las propuestas de diversas artistas mujeres de la música popular latinoamericana de creación reciente. La búsqueda de crecimiento o bienestar personal, y de soluciones a diversos problemas sociales, canalizada en la invocación de virtudes y poderes femeninos ancestrales, se manifiesta en el lenguaje poético o temático de canciones, en la composición visual, audiovisual y performática de los recitales. Un conjunto de representaciones religiosas presentes en distintas estéticas musicales que apuntan a visualizar poderes femeninos silenciados por el sistema patriarcal. Este trabajo analiza las formas estéticas en las que aparecen representadas prácticas y narrativas de espiritualidad en cuatro propuestas de artistas argentinas y las pone en relación con algunos elementos presentes en los discursos políticos contemporáneos.
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The spiritual feminism appears in the proposal of diverse women artists of Latin American popular music created recently. References linked to personal and social growth and well-being, to energy balance and the ancestral feminine powers, that are manifested in the poetic and thematic language of songs, in the visual, audiovisual and performative composition of the recitals. A set of multi religious representations
present in different musical aesthetics contribute to visualize female powers silenced by the patriarchal system. This paper analyzes the aesthetic forms in which practices and narratives of spirituality are represented in four proposals of Argentine female artists, and it puts them in relation to some of the speeches of the contemporary political scene.

Uvod Glazba estonskoga skladatelja Arve Pärta (1935.), jednog od najznačajnih imena u današnjoj kulturnoj javnosti, stekla je istaknutu pozornost među suvremenim skladateljima. Pärtova djela ostavljaju poseban dojam zbog uske sveze sa svetom glazbom liturgijske predaje. Umjetnički univerzum Arve Pärta, ukorijenjen u odjeku gregorijanskih napjeva i drevnih pravoslavnih monodija, preobražava se u slavljenički, štoviše, mistični stil. No, Pärt se ne udaljava od sadašnjosti i njezine disonantne zapletenosti; on je u svakom pogledu suvremeni skladatelj. No, Pärt je također skladatelj Istoka i Zapada, njihove bogate liturgijske i duhovne baštine. Estetski ključ njegove glazbe, tako univerzalne, klasične i suvremene, suzdržane i rječite, jednostavne i u isti mah složene, rađa se iz duhovnoga iskustva koje vijuga preko različitih putova te se približava jezgri djela: moliteljskomu logosu. Tema molitve u liturgijskoj glazbi nije nova. No, u Pärtovoj glazbi ta se među-sobna implikacija realizira na nov način. Ona baca novo svjetlo na kružnu modulaciju u kojoj glazba postaje molitvena gesta, zahvaća dubine svetoga, ali u isto vrijeme molitva nosi glazbu na obzorje duhovnoga, onkraj granica čujnoga i vidljivoga. U Pärtovoj se glazbi tako rastvara prostor umjetničke kreacije unutar kojega sprega i međusobna stimulacija molitve i glazbe tvore nova značenja i nova usmjerenja. Ovaj članak želi osvijetliti estetsku narav molitve u Pärtovoj glazbi, izlažući razmišljanja o profilu njegova djela te preispituje izvorni smisao obredne molitve i njezine raznovrsne antropološke odjeke.

Together with Marleen de Witte (University of Amsterdam) and Thijl Sunier (VU University Amsterdam) I edited a special volume of the journal Culture and Religion on the aesthetics of religious leadership. The different contributions were presented earlier in 2012 in the seminar Aesthetics of religious leadership at VU University:

Seminar: Aesthetics of religious leadership – C L O S E R

    Religious leaders of different backgrounds across the world increasingly manifest themselves in the public sphere. Through public performances and modern social media they build communities, create audiences, and convey their messages. On Friday the 21st of September 2012 the anthropological department of the VU University in Amsterdam, in cooperation with the Radboud University of Nijmegen organizes a one-day symposium on the ‘aesthetics of religious leadership’. The aim of the meeting is to explore how recent international scholarly discussions on aesthetics, mediation, and the senses can contribute to our understanding of the role of sensory modes (image, sound and performance) and experiences in the development of new forms of religious persuasion, new modes of religious performance and shifting sources of authority.

In this article, I examine the discursive as well as embodied and sensorial forms of persuasion that undergird the formation of religious authority, Islamic authority in the Netherlands more specifically. I argue that particular momentary occasions can play important roles in facilitating the mobilization of these discursive and non-discursive forms of persuasion. Based on a close reading of an event I participated in during my fieldwork among young Muslims in the Netherlands, the analysis focuses on such a key moment of persuasion, paradoxically characterised by a preacher’s apparently failed attempt at conversion. Despite this failure, this preacher can be seen to have succeeded in offering his young Muslim audience a model of how to be a Muslim and of how to represent Islam to non-Muslims. Apart from contributing to anthropological debates on Islamic authority in Europe and religious persuasion more generally, I discuss an important new type of Islamic leaders – referred to here as ‘travelling preachers’ – and the new kinds of youth-centred settings of religious learning in which they operate.

В секулярном мире язык искусства не способен адекватно отражать специфику религиозных объектов или переживаний человека по поводу трансцендентного. В результате расширилась и углубилась пропасть между культовым и современным искусством. Параллельно развертываются тенденции диалога между ними, поскольку культовое христианское искусство обретает известную динамику.
Как следствие, складываются предпосылки сотрудничества художников с обновляющимся образным религиозным миром. Так, в США с 1979 года функционирует организация «Христиане в визуальных искусствах» (CIVA); наблюдается взаимодействие церковных общин с музеями современного искусства (собор св. Павла в Лондоне); в храмовое пространство встраиваются инсталляции. Анализ названных феноменов актуализирует теоретическое значение подходов, моделирующих направления диалога искусства и религии.

This paper examines the artwork of the contemporary Japanese painter Hiroshi Senju as a vehicle to explore how fissures within a traditional religio-aesthetic concept like the sublime can provide productive openings for interreligious engagement. A focused study of Senju’s installation at the Shofuso Japanese House outside Philadelphia serves as a lens to view two different critiques of the Western sublime as inherently dualistic and antagonistic—one from Christian theological aesthetics the other from Japanese and Buddhist aesthetics—and their accompanying responses based on different notions of ontological depth. Considering further how Senju’s art mediates these two different versions of depth, the paper claims that Senju’s art provides a unique response to the problematics of the sublime, a response that envisions a sublime that sustains a depth that does not overwhelm or erase material and temporal particulars but suspends them in a participative relationship.