Dynamiken der Religionsgeschichte zwischen Asien und Europa
Meeting
Ritual, Normativity, and Representation: New Methods and Theories in the Study of Religious Contacts
CERES-Palais, Raum "Ruhrpott" (4.13)
The workshop on “Ritual, Normativity, and Representation” brings together young and established scholars from the Käte Hamburger Kolleg of the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) and the Department of Storia, Antropologia, Religioni, Arte, Spettacolo (SARAS) at Sapienza University of Rome.
For two days the two teams of researchers will discuss how they explored and developed new methods and theories in the study of religious contacts. The exploration of “ritual,” “normativity,” and “representation,” as major themes in the study of religious contact, will provide avenues of interpretation common to the two European schools in the study of religion. The participants will investigate not only how religious contacts are experienced and documented, but also the ways in which they also become subject to embodiment and stigmatization through representation and norms, on one hand, and through ritual practices and discourses about rituals, on the other hand.
The KHK team will present the work of its four Focus Groups (“Knowledge,” “Experience,” “Media,” and “Action”) in establishing and testing methodology of religious contact. Each presentation is expected to entail both a theoretical part and a case study illustrating its chosen methodological perspective. The team from Sapienza University will present its own explorations in the study of religion as representation, ritual, and means of negotiation between politics and practices, as they are documented in the last years’ issues of the journal Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni: “religion as a colonial concept,” “the gods of the others, the gods and the others,” “art and history in the religious traditions of India,” “religions in movement,” and “defining religious minorities.” The participants from both schools choose historical and contemporary case studies of religious contacts documented in Asia and/or Europe and the Mediterranean.
