Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe
Lecture
Guest Lecture: The Intersection of Media with Religion in Kashmir: An Overview
CERES Palais, room "Ruhrpott" (4.13)
Guest lecture by Raoof Mir (Göttingen/New Delhi)
The guest lecture presents a study that looks at the ways in which media and religion intersect in the spaces of social, political and cultural practices in the Muslim majority region of Kashmir Valley. By interpreting the existing literature on the history of Islam in Kashmir Valley through a communication perspective, the study argues that that each form of media has contributed to the shaping of Islamic traditions in Kashmir Valley in distinctive ways. The initial purpose of the study therefore is therefore to look at the communication forms such as orality and literacy and their interplay with Islamic traditions in Kashmir Valley. Later, in order to explain how new media technologies such as print, television, cassettes and computer mediated technologies have contributed to articulation of new forms of religiosities, this study takes an ethnographic turn by looking at the ways in which Muslims individuals or Muslims groups in Kashmir use these media technologies to construct religious meanings.
