Aesthetics of Religion

Aesthetics of Religion
Author: Alexandra K. Grieser
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2017-12-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110460459

This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates that aesthetics, as a theory of sensory knowledge, offers an elaborate repertoire of concepts that can help to understand religious traditions. These approaches take into account contemporary developments in scientific theories of perception, neuro-aesthetics and cultural studies, highlighting the socio-cultural and political context informing how humans perceive themselves and the world around them. Developing since the 1990s, the aesthetic approach has responded to debates in the study of religion, in particular striving to overcome biased categories that confined religion either to texts and abstract beliefs, or to an indisputable sui generis mode of experience. This volume documents what has been achieved to date, its significance for the study of religion and for interdisciplinary scholarship.

Religion and Education

Religion and Education
Author: Gert Biesta
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2020-11-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9004446397

Religion and Education: The Forgotten Dimensions of Religious Education? explores fundamental questions about the role of religion and education in contemporary religious education. Drawing from a range of educational and religious traditions and perspectives, it investigates the future of religious education for all.

International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimensions in Education

International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimensions in Education
Author: Marian de Souza
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1417
Release: 2007-06-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1402052464

In today’s pluralistic world, many cultures feel a shift in the relationship of people with religious traditions. A corresponding movement is a resurgence of interest in human spirituality. This Handbook presents the views of education scholars who engage these concepts every day, in a collection of essays reflecting the international state of the discipline. Out of these rises a vision for the emergence of a just and peaceful world.

The Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith

The Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith
Author: Christopher D. Tirres
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2014-01-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199352542

What is the future of liberation thought in the Americas? In this groundbreaking work, Christopher D. Tirres takes up this question by looking at the methodological connections between two quintessentially American traditions: liberation theology and pragmatism. He explains how pragmatism lends philosophical clarity and depth to some of liberation theology's core ideas and assumptions. Liberation theology in turn offers pragmatism a more nuanced and sympathetic approach to religious faith, especially its social and pedagogical dimensions. Ultimately, Tirres crafts a philosophical foundation that ensures the continued relevance of liberation thought in today's world. Keeping true to the method of pragmatism, the book begins inductively with a set of actual experiences-- the Good Friday liturgies at the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas-- and provides a compelling description of the way these performative rituals integrate the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of faith. Subsequent chapters probe this integration deductively at three levels of theoretical analysis: experience/metaphysics, sociality, and pedagogy. As Tirres shows, the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of faith emerge in different yet related ways at all three levels. He argues that utilizing the categories of the aesthetic and ethical enables a richer understanding of the dynamic relationship between faith and politics. This book builds new bridges between a number of discourses and key figures, and will be of interest to all who are interested in the liberatory potential of engaged faith praxis, especially when it is expressed in the form of religious ritual.

Faith and Beauty

Faith and Beauty
Author: Edward Farley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351937367

'Aesthetics' and 'theological aesthetics' usually imply a focus on questions about the arts and how faith or religion relates to the arts; only the final pages of this work take up that problem. The central theme of this book is that of beauty. Farley employs a new typology of western texts on beauty and a theological analysis of the image of God and redemption to counter the centuries-long tendency to ignore or marginalize beauty and the aesthetic as part of the life of faith. Studying the interpretation of beauty in ancient Greece, eighteenth-century England, the work of Jonathan Edwards, and nineteenth and twentieth-century philosophies of human self-transcendence, the author explores whether Christian existence, the life of faith, and the ethical exclude or require an aesthetic dimension in the sense of beauty. The work will be of particular interest to those interested in Christian theology, ethics, and religion and the arts.