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INSTITUTe FOR RELIGIOUS STUDIES Material Religion

The theoretical concept of "Material Religion" explores how "religion" materializes. This perspective considers much more than just religious objects such as images, statues, ritual items, cult sites, buildings, amulets, and talismans.

The approach of Material Religion aims, in a much broader sense, to investigate how religion occurs on a material level. The focus is on the interactions between religious objects and environmental settings on the one hand and actors on the other. It examines the embodiment of religion in actions and rituals and the occurrence of religion as a result of specific aesthetic, social, habitual, and cognitive arrangements.

Buddhakekse

Projects

Table

  • Modern religious experience societies. Media and aesthetic presentations of the teachings of Christian organisations in the USA.
  • SFB 933 Material text cultures
  • Zen transcultural - Globalisation and materialisation of Buddhism in the 21st century.

Literature

  • Prohl, Inken. 2015. „Aesthetics“. In Key Terms in Material Religion, herausgegeben von S. Brent Plate, 9–15. New York, London: Bloomsbury.

    ———. 2021. „Material Religion and Artificial Intelligence“. Material Religion. The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief17 (4): 540–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2021.1947028.

    ———. 2023. „Buddhist Practice, Recreation, and Fun: Entanglements of Popular Culture and Material Religion“. In The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion, herausgegeben von Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Jennifer Scheper Hughes, und S. Brent Rodríguez-Plate, 304–15. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.

Deutsch

Institute for Religious Studies