Expressions of Religion: Ethnography, Performance and the Senses

This volume brings together experts in ethnology, anthropology, folklore, sociology and history of art, in order to discuss the varieties or religious expression through ritual performance, empirical ethnographic analysis and sensory modes of perception. The primary goal of the book is to re-centralize the importance of expressing religion through performance, art and the senses, and to approach performative action as religion in a variety of sociocultural, historical, political and spiritual contexts. The authors in this volume examine, in distinct yet convergent ways, how religion is creatively expressed, ritually performed and sensorially experienced at present and/or in the past. The significance of this book lies exactly on the richness and diversity of expressions of religion that are presented here, and on the multi-disciplinary dialogue that is generated among diverse theoretical, analytical and methodological approaches.