Morgan, David

"Protestants and Pictures examines the important role that American Protestants played in the formation of visual mass culture between 1820 and 1920 - a vast record of images that includes illustrated Bibles, popular religious books, children's literature, broadsides, tracts, chromos, and engravings. In exploring the rise of this culture, author David Morgan shows how Protestants used mass-produced images to dedicate religious revival, proselytism, mass education, and domestic nurture to the aim of national renewal."--BOOK JACKET.

"Islam through Objects represents the state of the field of Islamic material cultural studies. With contributions from scholars of religion, anthropologists, art historians, folklorists, historians, and other disciplines, Anna Bigelow brings together a wide range of perspectives on Islamic materiality to debunk myths of Islamic aversion to material aspects of religion. Each chapter focuses on a single object in daily use by Muslims - prayer beads, coins, amulets, a cistern well, clothing, jewellery, bodily and domestic adornments - to consider both generic and particular aspects of the object in question. These narratives will engage the reader by describing and analyzing each object in terms of its provenance, materials, uses, and history, as well as the broader history, variety and uses of the object in Islamic history and cultures. Temporal, regional, and sectarian variations in the styles, uses, and theological perspectives are also considered. Framed by an introduction that assesses the various approaches to Islamic material culture in recent scholarship, Islam through Objects provides a template for the study of religion and material culture, which engages current theory, subtle and nuanced narratives, and the creative and imaginal capacities of Muslims through history"--

"From miniatures and monuments to Bible theme parks and attractions, this book explores how and why scriptural text is materialized in various forms and turned into physical, experiential, and choreographed environments. Drawing on archival and ethnographic data, case studies from the Unites States are contextualized globally, with significant references to cases in Israel, Brazil, Canada, Italy, U.K., Philippines, and Germany. Bielo shows that the sensory imperative of religion demands that faith must be experienced, not simply known cognitively or performed discursively. He argues that materializing the Bible generates intimacy with scripture, that can be experienced in multiple sensory configurations - just as the Bible is interpretively open it is also experientially open. Divided into three parts, the book has 20 short essays that can be read in any order, each with one or two case studies. Denominations explored include Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and Jewish communities. An appendix provides a guide to the Biblio attractions mentioned, and additional images and videos can be found at www.materializingthebible.com."--

“Behold the Heart that has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify to Its love, and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.” These are the words of Christ to St. Margaret Mary to whom He entrusted the mission to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart in order to repair for the ingratitude, sacrileges, blasphemies and the indifference committed against It in the Blessed Sacrament. In return, He promised great graces to those who respond to His plea for love and reparation. Yet, we cannot come to love what we do not know or understand. To encourage devotion to the Heart of Jesus, Fr. Marin de Boylesve, S.J. (1813-1892) provides short reflections based on the Scriptures showing how everything God planned came from His Love: that this most Loving Heart is present throughout the Gospels, how the actions of the Blessed Trinity are completely connected with the Heart of Christ, and that the most perfect prayer, the Our Father, springs from the font of the Sacred Heart. Fr. de Boylesve also explains how the Sacraments of the Church come forth from this Furnace of Love, and how the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit are united with the Sacred Heart. If you desire to understand and increase your love for the Heart of Jesus, this book is a must-have for your spiritual library. Included are a biography of the author, additional prayers and sixteen illustrations. About the author: Fr. Marin de Boylesve is best remembered in France for spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart with his writings thereby promoting the cause for the construction of the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris.

Die Ausstellung 'The problem of god' zeigt wie sich die christliche Bildtradition als universales Kulturgut in einem säkularen Kontext weiterentwickelt hat. Auffällig viele der 120 Arbeiten widersetzen sich dabei einer einfachen Lesart. Vielmehr entfalten sie komplexe Geschichten und Bilder, die sich differenziert und hintergründig mit christlichen Motiven, Themen oder Fragestellungen auseinandersetzen. Die Ausstellung handelt daher weder von sakraler Kunst noch von Religiosität im Allgemeinen. Der Fokus der Ausstellung richtet sich auf Arbeiten, die zwar auf christliche Symbole oder Themenfelder Bezug nehmen, diese jedoch kritisch reflektieren, transformieren und in neue inhaltliche wie ästhetische Zusammenhänge überführen. 0Die Auswahl der Werke konzentriert sich auf die Kunst der vergangenen 25 Jahre und umfasst Gemälde, Papier- und Glasarbeiten, Skulpturen, Fotografien, Video- und Filmarbeiten sowie komplexe, zum Teil eigens für diese Ausstellung geschaffene Rauminstallationen. Ausgewählte Werke markieren zentrale Positionen der Kunstgeschichte der Jahre zwischen 1950 und 1980. An ihnen lässt sich beispielhaft die bisweilen subtile Durchdringung des christlichen Zeichen- und Symbolsystems rückwirkend nachvollziehen und innerhalb eines kollektiven Bildgedächtnisses verorten. 0Exhibition: Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany (26.09.2015-24.01.2016).

"Religions teach their adherents how to see and feel at the same time, so learning to see is not a disembodied process but one hammered out on the forge of human need, social relations, and material practice. Therefore, religions may be studied through the lens of salient visual themes. This book tells a history of Catholic and Protestant Christianity since the sixteenth century by selecting visual themes that have shaped the development of the religion throughout the modern era. Chapters examine a variety of visual practices, including imagination, envisioning nationhood, the likeness of Jesus, modern art as a spiritual quest, the material life of words, and the importance of images for education, devotion, worship, and domestic life."--Provided by publisher.

This book is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery that inspire, shape, convey, and expand both the visual practices of devotional communities, as well as possibilities for extending the reach of devotion in society in new and often unexpected ways. Communities of interpreters of bhakti images discussed in this book include not only a number of distinctive Hindu bhakti groups, but also artisans, diaspora women, South Asian Sufis, businessmen, dancers, and filmmakers. This book's identification of devotional practices of looking, such as materializing memory, mirroring and immaterializing portraits, and shaping the return look, connect material and visual cultures as well as illustrate modes of established and experimental image usage. Bhakti is one of the most-studied aspects of Indic devotionalism on account of its expression through emotive poetry, song, and vivid hagiographies of saints. The diverse devotional visualities analyzed in this book meaningfully circulate bhakti images in past and present, generating their renewed relationship to contemporary concerns.

Summary:"Material Devotion in a South Indian Poetic World contributes new methods for the study and interpretation of material religion found within literary landscapes. The poets of Hindu devotion are known for their intimate celebration of deities, and while verses over a thousand years old are still treasured, translated, and performed, little attention has been paid to the evocative sensorial worlds referenced by these literary compositions. This book offers a material interpretation of an understudied poem that defined an entire genre of South Asian literature -Tirukkovaiyar-the 9th-century Tamil poem dedicated to Shiva. The poetry of Tamil South India invites travel across real and imagined geography, naming royal patrons, ancient temple towns, and natural landscapes. Leah Elizabeth Comeau locates the materiality of devotion to Shiva in a world unique to the South Indian vernacular and yet captivating to audiences across time, place, and tradition."-- Provided by publisher