The Religious Body Imagined

This symposium will probe the porous edges of the religious body and examines the ways in which it has been imagined, imaged, and discursively produced in particular places, times, and religious traditions. It seeks to theorize the religious body鈥檚 various functions, roles, and transformative effects through a range of disciplinary and theoretical lenses. It asks, 鈥淗ow does our experience of the body shape our conceptions of the sacred (however defined), and conversely, how do the invisible contours of the sacred re-instantiate or re-embody themselves in concrete physical form? The symposium explicitly seeks to engage theories of the body, materiality, performance, and visual culture, as well as cultural studies, space / place, ritual, postcolonial theory and / or social justice as it pertains to embodiment.

Conference co-conveners:

Pamela D. Winfield, Associate Professor of Religious Studies (福利亚洲国产精品)

Mina Garcia, Associate Professor of Spanish听(福利亚洲国产精品)

Direct all inquiries to Dr. Brian K. Pennington, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, at bpennington4@elon.edu.

Keynote

Searching for the Soul in the Doll鈥檚 Body: Spiritual Technologies from Golem to Barbie, Sex Dolls to Artificial Intelligence

S. Brent Plate (Hamilton College)

Convinced that religion has less to do with beliefs than with bodies, Professor S. Brent Plate鈥檚 research, teaching, and writing center on the ways people connect with physical objects through sense perception. The things we humans see, hear, smell, taste, and touch are what give us our spiritual dimension. He is the author of four books, including听A History of Religion in 5 陆 Objects, and editor of another ten books, including听Key Terms in Material Religion听and听Religion in Museums. His essays have appeared in听Newsweek,听Slate,听Los Angeles Review of Books,听The Christian Century,听The Islamic Monthly,听Huffington Post, and听Religion Dispatches. He is the President of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life/Cross Currents, co-founder and managing editor of the academic journal Material Religion, and serves on the board of the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, in upstate New York, where he lives with his partner, two kids, and a black mutt. He is Associate Professor by Special Appointment of Religious Studies at Hamilton College.

 

Prof. Elizabeth Rhodes

Professor of Hispanic Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Boston College, will offer closing remarks.

 

 

 

Symposium Schedule

(Unless otherwise indicated, all sessions are in the Numen Lumen Pavilion)

Thursday, Feb. 7

  • 3:00:听Check-in, Coffee
  • 3:45:听Welcome, Brian K. Pennington, Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society
  • 4:00-5:15:听Session 1: Transfigured Bodies
    • Ariela Marcus-Sells (福利亚洲国产精品), presiding
    • Shuxi Yin (Hefei University of Technology, China), 鈥淔ormation and Transformation of Virgin Mary鈥檚 Image in Ming-Dynasty China鈥
    • Clyde Ellis (福利亚洲国产精品),听鈥淭he Son of Power: Indigenized Christianity and the Image of Christ in Native North America鈥
  • 5:30-7:00:听Keynote Address听(Yeager Recital Hall)
    • S. Brent Plate (Hamilton University), 鈥淪earching for the Soul in the Doll鈥檚 Body: Spiritual Technologies from Golem to Barbie, Sex Dolls to Artificial Intelligence鈥
  • 7:00:听Dinner (Isabella Cannon Room)

Friday, Feb. 8

  • 9:00-10:15:听Session 2: LGBTQ Bodies
    • Lynn Huber (福利亚洲国产精品), presiding
    • Saqer Almarri (Binghamton University), 鈥淭he Khuntha in the Congregation鈥
    • William Gilders, (Emory University), 鈥淗arvey Milk鈥檚 (Sacred and Sexual) Body鈥
  • 10:15-11:00:听Coffee, Sponsored by Religious Studies Department
  • 11:00-12:15:听Session 3: Traumatized Bodies
    • Sarah Bloesch (福利亚洲国产精品), presiding
    • Sarah Dove (The Ohio State University), 鈥淎 Myth of Holism: In/Visible Fragmentations and Wounded Being鈥
    • Mina Garcia Soormally (福利亚洲国产精品), 鈥淟ope鈥檚听Hamete de Toledo: The Infidel鈥檚 Body as Conquered Land鈥
  • 12:30-2:00:听Lunch (McEwen Hall)
  • 2:15-4:00:听Session 4: Lived Bodies
    • Evan Gatti (福利亚洲国产精品), presiding
    • Katherine Zubko (University of North Carolina, Asheville), 鈥淭he Embodied Palimpsest: Dancing Kinesthetic Empathy in Bharatanatyam鈥
    • Anandi Silva Knuppel (Emory University), 鈥淭he Body of the Senses, Imagined and Lived: Seeing Krishna in Transnational Gaudiya Vaishnavism鈥
    • Megan Adamson Sijapati (Gettysburg College), 鈥淭he Instrumentality of the Body in American Shadhiliyya Sufism鈥
  • 4:30-6:00:听Opening reception for exhibit of Cowan Collection of Religious Art
    • Undergraduate Research Poster Presentations
  • 7:00:听Dinner (Home of Brian Pennington and Amy Allocco)

Saturday, Feb. 9

  • 9:00-10:15:听Session 5: Dead Bodies
    • Andrew Monteith (福利亚洲国产精品), presiding
    • Anca Sincan (University College Cork), 鈥淭he Afterlife of Bishop Evloghie O葲a鈥檚 Dead Body and its Disputed Ownership鈥
    • Pamela Winfield (福利亚洲国产精品), 鈥淏ody Building: The Architectural Corpus of the Japanese Zen Monastery鈥 (monastic vs. lay memorial halls)
  • 10:15-11:30:听Elizabeth Rhodes (Boston College), Concluding Remarks