1
The articles gathered in this
Special Issue stem from a three-day workshop on “Religion, Media,
Materiality: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religious Authority”
which took place in January 2018 in Bochum. The workshop was organised
by Giulia Evolvi and Jessie Pons within the framework of the research
group “Religion and Media” at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (2008–2022). The
concept of media that we posit encompasses both tangible objects like
images, books, buildings as well as intangible elements like music or
performances. It further extends to digital forms such as websites,
social media, or phone applications. These material and immaterial
objects are entangled in religious practice in many ways. The statue of
a god brings him within human reach. Rendering him more tangible and
relatable, it bridges the immanent, the here and now of the
practitioner, with the transcendent that exists beyond the realm of
physical existence. A blog provides a platform for fostering discussions
on doctrines, disseminating guidance on practices, or challenging the
stance of religious institutions (Evolvi 2020a;
Kołodziejska and Neumaier 2017). A
website or an application on a smartphone can facilitate religious
practices, offering a digital alternative to the person unable to attend
service at a temple (Helland
2010; Maes
2022). It can also serve as a helpful reminder for Christians
to pray or keep track of a Buddhist’s karma (Karis 2020; Bellar
2021). Whether analogue or digital, these media may be
authorised and legitimated by religious institutions or contested and
rejected. As we explore the mechanisms by which these media become
imbued with religious potency and are deemed acceptable in religious
practice or channel discourses on religion, the issue of authority
becomes central. Media may be sanctioned or contested by religious
groups and conversely, it can serve as a platform to reinforce or
challenge the stand of religious communities. To put this bluntly:
religion authorises media and media authorises religion. Corollary to
this, is the role of media in intra and inter-religious contact. Media
can become the object of disputes within and across religious groups who
will coalesce around consensual media uses. They can foster the
interaction among religious communities, exemplified by sacred sites in
Kerala serving as places of worship for Hindus, Christians, Jews, and
Muslims (Arfeen
2022), or the dissolution of sectarian affiliations in online
environments (Grieve
2014). The articles gathered in this volume provide nuanced
case-studies of the entanglement between religion, media, and
authority.
2
The fields of religion and
materiality, religion and media or digital religion are
well-established. Since the 1980s, the cultural dynamics that “the
material,” “objects” or “things” entail have become central to culture
studies (Csikszentmihalyi and Halton 1981; Appadurai
1986). The notion that objects possess a social life or a
biography, as articulated by Kopytoff (1986), and the recognition that
throughout their trajectory, they become entwined in shifting value
systems that warrant scrutiny, has had a profound impact on disciplines
within the humanities and social sciences. Building upon these
paradigmatic changes, religious studies has turned its focus to the
material dimension of religious life (McDannell
1995; Morgan
1998; Vásquez
2011; Eck
1985; Davis
2001; Schopen 2014; Pintchman and
Dempsey 2016). Attention to the production, dissemination,
and consumption of objects within various religious communities has not
only amended the traditional emphasis on theologies and doctrines, but
it has also provided a fresh prism through which to study them. To
illustrate, Gérard Colas and Richard Davis have shown how competing
Hindu theologies regarding divine corporeality or the ritual offering of
prasāda can only be fully understood in connection with the
rapid increase in the number of not only Hindu but also Buddhist and
Jain cult images at the turn of the Common Era (Davis 2001; Colas
2012), leading Colas to speak of an “iconological crises of
conscious” (“une
crise de conscience iconologique”; Colas 2012, 36–38). These considerations
on the intersection between religion and media have evolved at great
pace in the last decade as mass media and new digital media have
attracted scholarly attention (Hoover and
Lundby 1997; Hoover 2006; Campbell
2012; Lundby 2013; Campbell and
Tsuria 2021). Progressing through four waves that Morten
Hosgaard and Margit Warburg as well as Heidi Campbell and Giulia Evolvi
have delineated, research trajectory has shifted from a descriptive
examination of new media practices to a more theoretical and
interpretative framework (Hojsgaard and
Warburg 2005; Campbell and Evolvi 2020; Tsuria and
Campbell 2021). The impact of the new media on belief
systems, practices and their communities of users and their implications
on notions of identity, community, and authority are explored through
various theoretical and methodological approaches, often elaborated in
relation to traditional media and attuned to digital culture (Helland 2005;
Tsuria et al.
2017; Lundby and Evolvi 2021).
3
In discussing how religious
authority is framed in relation to religious life, scholars—not least
those gathered in this volume—have often drawn upon Webber’s
categorisation of legal (based on laws and regulations and their
institutional instances), traditional (derived from long-standing
customs), and charismatic (grounded in a leader with exceptional
qualities) authority (Weber 1921). Expanding and adapting
Webber’s classical categories to digital environments, Campbell
identifies four layers of religious authority (Campbell 2007): hierarchy (religious
leaders and communities who are recognised), structures (established
religious organisations), ideologies (beliefs and doctrines), and texts
(accepted teachings or books). As Pauline Hope Cheong underlines in her
review of the growing literature on authority in relation to digital
contexts, these various components may be intertwined, negotiated and
transient. For instance, charismatic authority may fade or be
“routinized into traditional or legal structures” (2021, 88). Authority can be singular or
plural, contingent upon the multimodality of online and offline
communication. Elvolvi’s article on Neo-Pagan fora discussed below
provides a lucid illustration the polymorphic nature of authority and of
the multiple loci in which authority operates. Central to considerations
on religious authority in relation to media is the impact of the
introduction of new technologies on authority structures. While the
shift from orality to writing in early Christianity or the role of the
introduction of the press on shaping the Protestant Reformation are
commonly cited as prototypical examples (Horsfield 2015), other studies have
examined the shift from orality to scripturally in Daoism (Bokenkamp
1999) or the transition from aniconic to iconic
representations of the Buddha or Mahāvīra in early Buddhism and Jainism
(DeCaroli 2015;
Cort
2010). As Knut Lundby and Giulia Evolvi put it “[w]hat counts
as ‘new media’ changes as time goes by” (Lundby and
Evolvi 2021, 233). In this context, Cheong highlights two
contradictory dynamics in the relationship between religious authority
and new digital media. The first is a logic of “disjuncture and
displacement,” characterised by the challenge that the technology poses
to traditional forms of authority and their potential to offer
alternative models of religious practice and a more democratised access
to religious knowledge. The second, a logic of “continuity and
complementarity,” sees traditional religious organisations reinforced as
leaders capitalise on new communication forms to expand their presence,
to reach out to offline congregations through social media, or to
reinforce official beliefs. Although Cheong grounds her observations in
the contemporary sphere of digital media, the dialectic of dynamic and
stability, the interplay between “weakening and strengthening” (Cheong 2021,
95) she underscores remains relevant to the case-studies
examined below. Media not only serves as a channel for the negotiation,
displacement or reification of religious authorities, as explored by
Stewart Hoover, Giulia Evolvi, Hanna Staehle, and Tim Karis, but it also
functions as an agent in stabilising belief, as discussed by David
Morgan and Sarit Shalev-Eyni or in authorising practices, as emphasised
by Ines Weinrich and Tim Karis. Whether centred on digital media or
traditional ones, the contributions gathered in this volume illustrate
how the nature of authority is multifaceted and assumes many forms and
functions. Authority is alternatingly ascribed by and onto institutions,
persons, and media and as we will underline, it is intimately connected
to processes of legitimisation, authenticity, trust, and
permissibility.
4
The editors of the volume
invited authors to engage with three theoretical frameworks, or more
generic stances on the role of media in religious communication
presented by key scholars in the field of religion and (digital)
media—Stewart Hoover, Birgit Meyer, and David Morgan—whom we were
honoured to win for this volume. Authors have taken up the challenge as
the themes of authority and media addressed in these
“discussion-triggering” articles are explored in case-studies rooted in
various geographical and historical contexts. In the following, we will
revisit the articles by Hoover, Morgan and Meyer and highlight how the
focused case-studies analysed by Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Ines Weinrich, Hanna
Staehle, Giulia Evolvi and Tim Karis offer a finer-grained appreciation
of these broad concepts and their entanglement.
Mediation and Media (de)Authorising Religion
5
Hoover (2021) examines the entanglement between
religion and media—internet, TV channels and newspapers—in modern times.
He primarily situates his discussion in the U.S., a context which is
unique on three counts: its “prodigious religious marketplace,” its
“equally prodigious media marketplace” and its global relevance.
According to Hoover, the convergence of the two fields of religion and
media prevents from thinking of these as two separate categories. While
religion is remade through the media, Hoover contends, provocatively,
that media has become religious. What is at play, is a reconfiguration
of these broad categories, their hierarchies, and their functions
through their mutual permeation. Mainstream confessional groups are
destabilised as media afford alternative spheres of religious practice
and living religion. Reciprocally, media become increasingly religious
not because they are imbued with religious qualities (contrary to Birgit
Meyer’s “sensational forms”), but because they integrate new religious
content in response to the competing religious marketplace. In that
sense, religion and media interact in ways that become determinative.
Key to Hoover’s essay is his discussion of authority, primarily
conceived in terms of institutional structures of established
traditions, and his delineation of the processes by which media factors
in the negotiation of authority. From the middle of the twentieth
century onward, religious institutions have become undermined as public
confidence declined and new, more individualised and autonomous
approaches to faith, emerged. As the author argues, the proliferation of
media sources results in a dual process, the commodification of
religions on the one hand and the redefinition of media themselves,
bearing significant implications for religious authority. The burgeoning
of media outlets not only enhances the exposure of alternative religious
communities but also allows to cater a more diversified and specialised
religious content, serving the needs of communities seeking
legitimisation. In turn, secular media must realign and become more
receptive to religious content. Within this evolving landscape,
traditional institutions must grapple with the increasingly mediatised
religious marketspace. While they may adapt, religious authority
undergoes a process of increasing relativisation and horizontalization,
marking a departure from traditional hierarchical structures. This trend
becomes more pronounced in a globalised context where media-generated
messages reach a wider audience, undergoing trans-nationalisation,
publicization, and politicisation.
6
The articles by Evolvi (2020b) and Staehle (2020)
offer illuminating case studies that shed light on the processes
emphasised by Hoover, both introducing alternative religious communities
harnessing the power of internet to skilfully navigate the realm of
online identity and authority negotiation. The Neo-Pagan forum examined
by Evolvi exemplifies the emergence of new religious movements in the
digital age while Staehle explores how the internet serves as a medium
where traditional religious institutions are contested. The digital
landscape, as revealed in these studies, operates as a dual force: it
authorises new religious narratives while simultaneously weakening old
ones. This dynamic is integral to the formation of what Anderson termed
“imagined communities” (1991)
with digital media acting as a conduit to assemble people, as
articulated by Meyer (2020).
7
Evolvi examines the case of the
Neo-Pagan forum, The Celtic Connection, to delve into the dynamics of
authority negotiation within digital spaces, with a specific focus on
the role of material culture. Neo-Paganism, marked by its heterogeneity
and lack of institutionalisation, serves as a compelling case-study for
investigating authority and the relevance of materiality on the
internet. Indeed, within Neo-Paganism, a term encompassing varied
movements with shared characteristics, the emphasis on individualised
and personalised practices challenges traditional notions of
institutional religious authority. The importance of ritual over belief
underscores the role of embodied practices and material culture,
elements that may not seamlessly align with digital platforms. The
concept of authority within such traditions is intricate, as
demonstrated by Evolvi. In the case of The Celtic Connection, as founder
of the website, Kardia Zoe holds informal authority. Yet authority is
“fluid,” collective, and self-determined. Users, including the Council
Elders (the website moderators) as well as experienced practitioners,
contribute advice based on their individual experiences and asserting
their claims to expertise. However, this “informal charismatic
authority,” which Elvovi describes is only partial and bound to the
affordances of the website: it is a forum to exchange experiences and
expertise, to require council on aspects as diverse as how to reconcile
the religion of their upbringing and one’s affiliation to Wicca or the
type of wand one should use in rituals. It does not facilitate online
rituals and the user will necessitate offline mentorship to complete his
spiritual journey. Evolvi’s study also explores the role of materiality
in these digital venues. The visual presentation of objects, including
various utensils used in rituals and the sites where Neo-Pagan
ceremonies typically unfold, serves not only to enrich the sensory
experience and imagination of users, thus bridging the perceived gap
between offline physicality and online instantiations, but also
functions as a means of showcasing expertise. The visual documents
posted by users function as tangible expressions of their competence in
determining what a wand should look and feel like, but also serve to
anchor their firsthand experiences in spiritually charged places like
Stonehenge, where they report having touched the stone and sensed the
unique atmosphere. In this sense, Evolvi’s study provides an interesting
example of Henry Jenkin’s remediation, defined as the circulation of
objects on several platforms (Jenkins
2008).
8
Hanna Staehle directs her
attention to the Russian website “Ahilla.ru,” established in 2017 by the
former Russian Orthodox priest Aleksei Pluzhnikov and his partner
Kseniia Volianskaia. The creation of this platform is a response to
administrative reforms lead by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), its
official rhetoric and its heightened politicisation following the
enthronement of Patriarch Kirill in 2009. Ahilla.ru should be understood
within the broader context of the ROC’s growing reliance on media to
rejuvenate traditional religion, to engage with the unchurched and to
shape a perception of Orthodoxy as “an integrative force of Russian
society and a cornerstone of the state.” The ROC communicates its agenda
through various channels, including broadcast media, official Church
periodicals, Orthodox TV and radio stations, parish newspapers, and
social networks. Staehle examines “how online communication enhances
media non-professionals to reflect upon their experiences within
institutional religious settings and make these experiences—previously
unmediated and unknown—part of the media discourse.” This exemplifies
Hoover’s assertion about the challenges posed by media to authority,
illustrating that religious mainstream institutions can no longer
maintain a “private conversation.” As Ahilla.ru provides a platform to
empower unheard voices of the ROC to express themselves outside of the
traditional frame of the church, the media sphere turns into “a
battlefield.” Two competing narratives about the ROC emerge each related
by distinct actors or groups: the organized ROC represented by
high-clergymen and hierarch, and low clergymen and laypeople who
identify themselves as “church outcasts” and “wounded.” Ahilla.ru thus
presents itself as a community united by its dissident purpose, shared
values, and a collective disdain for offline hierarchies. This dialectic
of opposition is communicated in terms of “them/us,” “the system/the
people.” The narratives surrounding the ROC vary significantly. On one
hand, mainstream media’s official narrative, criticised by Ahilla.ru, is
perceived as distorted, politicized, corrupted, ritualized, and devoid
of its sacred functions. On the other hand, Ahilla.ru presents an
“authentic” narrative that delves into the unspoken issues within the
Church, offering reflections and personal perspectives on beliefs and
practices. The alternative narrative is expressed in a new genre of
religious expression: the anonymous confession. Interestingly, this
genre is inspired by The Confession of a Former Novice, a tale
by Mariia Kikot and a critical portrayal of Orthodox establishment. The
confessions stem from an anonymous questionnaire embedded into the
architecture of the website which contains sixteen questions which
touches on three levels of authority which align with Campell’s
categories: hierarchy, structure, and ideology. The questions are
formulated in such a way that the confession both undermines the
dominant rhetoric of the ROC authority and legitimises the alternative
narrative. Having inside knowledge and first-hand experience, the
“church” is legitimate to criticize the “Church” and in turn,
establishes itself as the true, genuine, sincere ROC, guardian of it
“original spiritual and moral qualities.” This case study also unveils
the embedded nature of media as elucidated by Birgit Meyer. Indeed, the
dissenting views are articulated on a website through a distinctive
format, employing a questionnaire that not only establishes a new
genre—confessions—but also derives inspiration from a traditional
medium, namely a novel. By tapping into the resonance of a well-known
literary work, the website has the potential to enhance credibility of
the messages it disseminates. This phenomenon aligns with McLuhan’s
concept that “the medium is the message” (1964), suggesting that the choice of
medium itself imparts significant meaning to the communicated
content.
Mediation and Authorising Sensational Forms
9
In her essay, Birgit Meyer (2020)
pleas to approach religion as mediation, which she considers a powerful
tertium to explore religion from a comparative perspective. As
the author posits: “Religious transformations in past and present can
fruitfully be analysed by tracing clashes over the use of old and new
media (for example, the rejection of devotional images in favour of
Bible reading in the post-Lutheran Reformation) in gathering followers
and addressing the divine, just as tensions between adherents of
different religions can be analysed as conflicts over appropriate uses
of media.” Meyer’s conception of the religion-media nexus departs from
that of Hoover’s and Lundby’s (1997)
which takes media and religion as separate fields that become enmeshed
in communication processes (and increasingly so with the appearance of
new media). In this understanding of mediation, media plays a pivotal
role in not only representing religion by sharing religious content but
also in fostering communication among religious groups. In Meyer’s take
on mediation, media are understood as “material means for religious
communication among humans and as material harbingers of a professed
beyond conventionally referred to as spirits, gods, demons, ghosts, or
God.” Meyer does not presuppose the existence of the divine, a stance
that critics argue would potentially confuse emic and etic categories.
Instead, her methodology involves scrutinising the dialectics
surrounding the articulation of the immanence/transcendence distinction
and the role of media within that framework. Media are sensational forms
through which a sense of transcendence is evoked and made tangible
(forms that make the transcendent “sense-able”). They are not reducible
to the object, the “stuff” that they constitute (a primary level), but
encompass several levels: their materiality, their technological
affordances in the sense of Gibson (1966), the ways in which they are
deployed in religious practice, the sensory response they elicit, how
their meaning is interpreted by their users and beholders, and the
authorisation process they entail. As they are expected to “herald
transcendence and enshrine sacrality,” sensational forms must be imbued
with religious meaning, authenticated, and authorised. They must be
“handled with care” within the framework of the religious habitus
developed by religious groups. For Meyer, these “theologies of
mediation” articulated by religious groups constitute a valuable
tertium not only to identify commonalities and differences
between traditions but to grasp their entanglement or trace clashes
between competing conceptions of sensational forms.
10
The contributions of Tim Karis
(2020) and
Ines Weinrich (2020) significantly enrich this ongoing
discourse and Birgit Meyer’s plea to “take the materiality of
sensational forms seriously” and “question how these material forms
impact on and are entangled with their users” finds resonance in these
two articles. Through their focused case studies set in divergent
contexts—twelfth-century Levant and the present day—Karis and Weinrich
delve into the intrinsic embeddedness of media. They compellingly
demonstrate how the material qualities of media not only garner
authorisation suitable for their integration into religious practice but
also play a pivotal role in shaping the strategies employed for
authorisation. Sensational forms are both authorised and
authorising.
11
In her article, Weinrich
examines the practice of chanting in Arab Sunni communities in Syria and
Lebanon which she understands as a “sensational form” that serves
religious mediation. The starting point of her exploration is the work
of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, a twelfth century Sunni scholar, whose
Kitāb Ādāb as-samāʿ wa-l-wajd (Book on the Etiquette of
Listening and Ecsatsy) is often cited by Muslims in intra-religious
disputes to defend the use of music in religious rituals. Weinrich’s
case-study proves especially illuminating because it offers a clearer
understanding of the composite nature of sensational forms and unveils
the authorisation processes which underpin mediation. Although grasping
the material properties of sound and its potential affordances may pose
a challenge, Weinrich eloquently elucidates the sonic materiality
inherent in chanting. As sensational form, chanting comprises the poetic
and musical material (rhythm, type of instrument), the sounds produced
by the performer (quality, technique, with words or without words) and
the interaction between the performer and the listener. The listener’s
response goes beyond the sensory perception of the audience but is
evident in the physiological impact on the listeners and hereby becomes
tangible. Music is classified in different musical modes according to
the type of emotion they will elicit which will then manifest
(i.e. become tangible) in outwardly responses, affects, emotions, and
behaviour. Key to understanding Meyer’s concept of mediation and how
music can be conceived as an authorised harbinger of the divine is
Weinrich’s discussion of the concept ḥuzn (sorrow), which
listening should evoke. As the author explains, ḥuzn is the
feeling which “the result of the listener’s interaction with God, more
precisely, the realisation of human shortcomings vis-à-vis divine
excellence and grace.” It becomes clear how the choice of the correct
mode—which generates a somatic response deemed acceptable for religious
practice—is one condition of the authorisation. The analysis of
al-Ghazālī’s work sheds light on further processes of authorisation.
Authorisation is intricately linked to permissibility which is
conditioned and contextual. Al-Ghazālī argues that the permissibility of
performing and listening to music is for instance contingent upon the
listener’s circumstances (e.g. gender, age), and that certain wind
instruments and chordophones are deemed forbidden not solely due to
their sonic characteristics but rather their association with
reprehensible activities such as drinking or eroticism. Importantly,
al-Ghazālī employs legal terminology to construct and legitimise his
position, systematically dismantling the arguments of his opponents. To
strengthen his stance, he draws upon common Qurʿānic verses and
Prophetic traditions. The authorisation of music as a sensational form
is therefore classified according to effect and context.
12
Tim Karis examines Christian
prayer apps, offering a contribution to this younger digital phenomenon
from a much-needed systematic perspective. Karis engages with Meyer’s
concept of mediation and expands on the notion of authority,
highlighting further authorisation strategies. By drawing on Meyer’s
take on mediation, Karis can establish a systematic (and typological)
distinction between apps and how they relate to the mediation between
immanence and transcendence. Apps such as PrayerMate or
Prayer Notebook, remind the users to pray at a later point and
outside the digital environment of the application. Other apps however,
such as Pray with Me, give users the option to click “Pray”
hence allowing them to directly perform a religious practice. Whereas in
the former case, the app facilitates traditional religious practice
outside of the digital environment of the app, in the second case,
prayer takes place within the digital environment. In one case, the
phone allows the user to pray, in the other case, the phone prays,
“allegedly bridging the gap between the immanent and the transcendent.”
Karis raises here an important terminological and conceptual point: when
we speak of a religious medium, a distinction must be drawn between a
medium that transcends time and/or space (like any medium) in religious
practice and a medium that generates the transcendent in religious
practice. To explore how religious authority is produced in and through
prayer apps, Karis draws on Campbell’s four-layer model of religious
authority (Campbell
2007) and Michel Foucault’s concept of “technologies of the
self” (Foucault
1988). Regarding their design and content, prayer apps do not
move entirely away from traditional religious authority but may refer to
it. This is manifest in the following: apps embed authoritative texts
(Campbell’s fourth layer), they are recommended by local priests (first
layer), they are developed by local institutions (second layer), they
refer to sacred spaces (Western Wall in Jerusalem) or they use a design
and aesthetics that mimic traditional media (parchment). The aim is to
give an authentic feel and as Karis puts it “the new immaterial medium
borrows authority from the materiality of the traditional medium.”
Regarding their effect, Karis contends that apps displace traditional
models of authority in that they are tools which allow practitioners to
take their religious matter into their own hands. In that sense they
“free themselves from traditional offline authority.” However, while
apps self-empower the individual, they also exert a form of more subtle
power and “self-induced pressure” by micro-coordinating one’s religious
life and practice.
Generative Entanglement, the Mutual Authorisation of Media and the
Stabilisation of Belief
13
David Morgan evaluates the
concept of “generative entanglement” (2020), understood as the interplay of
two media—word and image—and how this interplay allows to give substance
to evanescent, ephemeral, or undefined religious experiences and
narratives. The premise to Morgan’s discussion is that word and image
are distinct in their essence and incommensurate: they comprise many
variations (e.g. images can be mental or diagrammatic and words can be
mental or textual), each have their own valence and agencies, impacting
the hearer or viewers in distinct ways. This, Morgan argues, “urges the
cultural analyst not to sever the performance or material work of the
word or image from its ‘meaning,’ as if the medium could be extricated
from either the significance or the speakers and viewers that it
mediates.” Word and image are not, or not only, accepted as carriers of
meaning but meaning results from and consists in the configuration of
several factors in an extended network of objects, agents,
relationships, and experiences. Becoming entangled, word and image
co-operate in the sense that they mediate and shape religious experience
and produce new meaning through a synergistic effect. Morgan roots his
demonstration in two case-studies: Our Lady of Fátima and Saint Jude.
The first case examines a series of apparitions of Fátima to young
children in 1917 and highlights the role of pious images (statuary,
lithographs, engravings) in interpreting Fátima’s apparition in cloud
formations and luminous effects. These stock pictures of devotional
iconography help the children make sense of what they saw and generate a
more detailed recollection and report of their divine encounter. Images
not only give substance to the vision, but they also confer more
credence to the religious experience (a phenomenon not too distant than
that highlighted by Evolvi). In the second case, Morgan highlights how
the fluid and multivalent iconography of Saint Jude which draws on that
of other saints or episodes of his hagiography becomes “a medium of the
lore,” making tangible what people have heard about the saint. The
iconographic variations offer a “missing origin,” a “backstory,”
ultimately offering a justification in the rich matrix of needs of
believers. The image emerges as an enabler, providing reliability and
authenticity, thus becoming a stabiliser for belief. This interplay of
word and image operates as a catalyst to anchor the evanescent or
elusive origine of the saints and access their reality. The entanglement
of word and image, generatively intertwined, serves as a force that
mutually reinforces and bolsters each other, creating an authorising
relationship.
14
In her article, Sarit
Shalev-Eyni (2020)
takes up the concept of generative entanglement and explores how word
and image collaborate in the Ashkenazi liturgical domain in the Holy
Roman Empire around 1300. She examines the mechanisms of this interplay
in two Ashkenazi liturgical manuscripts from Brussels and Esslinger: the
Brussel Pentateuch and the Dresden-Wroclaw prayer book. These prayer
books illuminated by narratives and figures used by the cantor during
service offer a valuable interface to study word and image as figural
decorations are typically absent from the visual repertoire of
synagogues. Furthermore, while the texts recited or sung by the cantor
and the believers remain consistent and obligatory components of the
ritual, the images, often derived from Christian visual formulas,
introduce an element of flexibility and variation, and operate on a more
allusive register. The integration of textual and visual elements in the
prayer books generates a new medium that, during liturgies, runs
parallel to the written message orally transmitted by the cantor or read
by the believer. This generative entanglement enhances the overall
liturgical experience and brings an alternative or additional dimension
to the ritual. Shalev-Eyni examines two instances of such cooperation in
the treatment of the biblical narrative of Isaac’s sacrifice. In the
case of the Brussel Pentateuch, the Jewish illuminator includes the
tallit, a prayer shawl, worn by Abraham. The tallit is
not normally part of the visual tradition of the scene but an attribute
of the cantor in the synagogue. By introducing this motif in the scene,
the illuminator achieves the following: he emphasizes the Jewish
understanding of the concept of atonement, he identifies Abraham with
the cantor, transfers the biblical scene into the public liturgical
domain and conflates the temporal dimensions of the biblical past and
the liturgical present. In the Dresden-Wroclaw prayer book, the
illuminator with a Christian background introduces a large wax candle
next to the altar where Isaac is to undergo sacrifice. The wax
candlestick is not foreign to Ashkenazi liturgy as it is used in the
feasts of the New Year and the Day of Atonement. Thus introduced into
the biblical scene, the candlestick also allows to connect the
liturgical service to the biblical past. The juxtaposition of the candle
stick with the altar is however idiosyncratic to the Jewish context and
results from the artist’s interpretation of the Jewish liturgical hymn
in his own “Christian terms.” The Pillar of Fire seen by Isaac and
Abraham described in the hymn recalled the Paschal candle that the
Christian artist/devotee would naturally associate with the altar in a
local church at Easter. In this instance, there is no direct challenge
to religious authority. Instead, the manipulation of iconographic
conventions and the intricate interplay among various media, including
the written word, the recitation, the illustration, the mental imagery,
and its connected biblical narrative, serves to merge temporal
dimensions. This amalgamation enhances the lived experience of the
ceremony by invoking biblical figures through their allusive power of
media.
15
The workshop and the edited
volume from which it results sought to establish a dialogue among
scholars who work on historical and contemporary sources to bring the
present in dialogue with the past and add complexity to the current
understanding of religious contact through the tertia of media
and authority. It was further motivated by the necessity to shift away
from an Euro-centric perspective and the focus on contemporary media
logics with which the academic discourse of religion and media has long
been associated. This tendency has nevertheless changed as more studies
have been dedicated to non-Western contexts and media shifts are
explored in a historical perspective (Grieve and
Veidlinger 2014; Zeiler 2021). The range of case-studies
presented in the workshop covered a broad geographical scope (North
America, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus,
South and East Asia), an extensive chronological frame (from the few
centuries before the common era until present-day), a great diversity of
religious communities (various Christian denominations, Islam, Judaism,
Yezidism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Confucianism, Daoism,
Neo-Paganism) and, last but not least, numerous media types (orality,
printed books, manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, buildings, websites,
web boards, online forums and apps). Although it has not been possible
to include all the original papers in this volume, the articles
published here are situated at the crossroads of several disciplines:
religious studies, media studies, art history, philology, and ethnology.
These refine our understanding of the impact of media and media-changes
on religious communities, semantics, or practices from a comparative
perspective, shedding light on inter and intra-religious configurations.
As Meyer puts it “[t]he availability and negotiation of media fuels
processes of religious transformation and shapes the ways in which
religious groups are positioned in society” (Meyer 2020).
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