Religion, Art, and Visual Culture is a cross-cultural exploration of the study of visuality and the arts from a religious perspective. This forward looking and accessible collection gathers together the most current scholarship for those interested in art, religion, visual culture, and cultural studies. Inherently interdisciplinary, this reader approaches the study of world religions through the human, meaning-making activity of seeing. The volume oscillates between specific visual subjects (painting, landscape gardens, calligraphy, architecture, mass media) and the broader theoretical discourses which are relevant to Humanities students today.
Introduction; S.Brent Plate SECTION 1: THE EYE AND THE MIND Introduction to Section One; S.Brent Plate From 'Vision'; D.Ackerman , From Eye and Mind ; R.L.Gregory From 'To See and Not See'; O.Sacks From 'Metaphors on Vision'; S.Brakhage SECTION 2: ICON: THE IMAGE OF JESUS CHRIST AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY Introduction to Section Two; S.Brent Plate From 'Image'; M.Miles From Painting the Word ; J.Drury From The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion ; L.Steinberg From 'Would Jesus Have Sat for a Portrait? The Likeness of Christ in the Popular Reception of Sallman's Art'; D.Morgan SECTION 3: QALAM: THE RELATIONSHIP OF WORD AND IMAGE IN ISLAMIC CALLIGRAPHY Introduction to Section Three; S.Brent Plate From Mediation of Ornament; O.Grabar From 'The Spiritual Message of Islamic Calligraphy'; S.H.Nasr From Calligraphy and Islamic Culture ; A.Schimmel From Modern Islamic Art ; W.Ali SECTION 4: SHINJIN: THE SEEING MIND-BODY IN JAPANESE ZEN GARDENS Introduction to Section Four; S.Brent Plate From Buddhism and the Arts of Japan ; R.Pilgrim From The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory ; Y.Yasuo From The Ocean in the Sand ; M .Holborn 'The Japanese Zen Garden'; S.Nagatomo & P.Winfield SECTION 5: DARSHAN: SEEING THE DIVINE IMAGE IN INDIA IN THE MODERN AGE Introduction to Section Five; S.Brent Plate From Darshan ; D.Eck From the Prologue to Devi: Goddess of India ; J.S.Hawley From 'All in the (Raghu) Family'; P.Lutgendorf From Lives of Indian Images ; R.Davis SECTION 6: ZAKHOR: JEWISH MEMORY BUILT INTO ARCHITECTURE Introduction to Section Six; S.Brent Plate From Jewish Icons ; R.Cohen From The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning ; J.Young 'Idolizing/Idealizing the Holocaust Era Boxcar'; O.Stier 'Building Zakhor: Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, Berlin'; S.Brent Plate
