Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Contested Desires

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This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the University of Oslo and Utrecht University. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are known to privilege words over images. This book shows, however, that the reality is more complex. Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen explores the complex procedures used to render the invisible as visible and the elusive as tangible in these three traditions. Working from different disciplinary angles, contributors reflect on figuration and sensation in biblical culture, medieval Jewish culture, the imagination of the unseen in Islamic settings, Christian assaults on 'idolatry' in Africa, baroque and modern Church art, contemporary Eastern Orthodox tradition, photography on the East African coast, European opera and literature, and more. The book shows that the three religious traditions have formed sensorial regimes: embodied habits, traditions and standards for seeing, sensing, displaying, and figuring that which could not, or should not, be seen. So, the desire for seeing the invisible and experiencing the beyond are paradoxically confirmed, contested and controlled, by the sensorial regimes in vogue. This carries over even into secularized use of religious figurations in arts and literature. Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen is important reading for scholars of anthropology, religious studies, Jewish studies, Christian studies, Islamic studies, art history, cultural studies, biblical studies and archaeology.

Reviews

Ambitious ... highly interesting. * Zeitschriften- und Bcherschau (trans. by Bloomsbury Academic) *
This is a bold and ambitious volume, not only in its conceptual scope, but also for its range of disciplinary perspectives and comparative focus. Taken together, the essays convey the vibrancy of religious studies today, as well as the centrality of approaches that take account of materiality and the senses. A must-have book for all serious students of the role of images within Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. -- MATTHEW ENGELKE, Professor of Religion, Columbia University, USA
Combining theoretical sophistication with a vital awareness of historical diversity, this book provides a series of refreshing studies of the broad repertoire of mediations of, and contentions over, the unseen realm. It moves beyond the normative preference for the word as the singular canonical medium of Judaism, Christianity and religion and pictorial media. -- LIV INGEBORG LIED, Professor of Religious Studies, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway
In the study of visual culture, it is hard to imagine a subject of investigation more important and telling than the tension between invisibility and visibility. For the visual cultures of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, this book explores that tension with sophistication, precision, and aplomb. It is essential reading. -- SIMON OMEARA, Lecturer in the History of Architecture & Archaeology of the Islamic Middle East, SOAS, University of London, UK

Author Bio

Birgit Meyer is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. Terje Stordalen is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Law, Aalborg University, Denmark.