Religious Statues and Personhood: Testing the Role of Materiality
Ebook
Objects such as statues and icons have long been problematic in the study of religion, especially in European Christianities. Through examining two groups, the contemporary Pagan Glastonbury Goddess religion in the Southwest of England and a cult of the Virgin Mary in Andalusia, Spain, Amy Whitehead asserts that objects can be more than representational or symbolic. In the context of increasing academic interest in materiality in religions and cultures, she shows how statues, or 'things', are not always interacted with as if they are inert material against which we typically define ourselves as 'modern' humans.
Bringing two distinct cultures and religions into tension, animism and 'the fetish' are used as ways in which to think about how humans interact with religious statues in Western Europe and beyond. Both theoretical and descriptive, the book illustrates how religions and cultural practices can be re-examined as performances that necessarily involve not only human persons, but also objects.
Demonstrates how the relationships that devotees have with statue forms of the divine feminine illustrate the powerful relational roles of matter and materiality in religion.
Puts forward a new theory that can be applied to objects across different contexts
Offers a different way of understanding the role that religious statues play for devotees
Illustrates the powerful relational role of matter in religion through two case studies
1. Introduction
2. Defining Terms
3. The Virgin of Alcala de los Gazules
4. The Glastonbury Goddess, England
5. Relationships, Relating, Relationality
6. Gift, Value and the Fetish: Testing the Roles of Offerings
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Whitehead's well-crafted ethnography is a rare account of the material agency of religious statues approached exclusively from the point of view of the humanities and social sciences. It offers a fresh take on issues of embodiment, agency, and ritual performativity.
The Goddess of Glastonbury and the Virgin of Alcala form two poles of attraction, evoking adherents and their spiritual practices, as well as Amy Whitehead's critical gaze. Across sacred spaces, times, and traditions Whitehead shows how devotional activities dovetail and diverge, with material structures standing at the heart of it all. Out of this, Whitehead creates an animated and adaptable theoretical framework for scholars across many fields of material religion.
Religious Statues and Personhood: Testing the Role of Materiality makes an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on material religion and to anthropological material culture studies more generally. The author's relational approach to object personhood points to new ways of understanding both 'objects' and 'people' in the study of vernacular religion.
- Title: Religious Statues and Personhood: Testing the Role of Materiality
- Author: Amy R. Whitehead
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781441126177, 9781474228565, 1474228569, 1441126171
- Resource ID: LLS:9781441126177
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-09T09:18:14Z
Amy Whitehead is part time MA Tutor, Sophia Centre, University of Wales, Trinity St David, UK.