Bodies of Communication: Physical Practices and Religious Texts

Programme

This workshop will foster conversations on the body as a site of religious expression. As the study of religion moves away from religious doctrines and institutions towards an increasing interest in the lived experience of religion, the human body takes up a more central place. In Biblical and related texts, issues in which the body is inevitable bound up, such as food and sexuality, birth and death, are never far away. While bodies are often policed in religious settings, they can also become the vehicle for communication with the divine. We are open to a range of theoretical or methodological approaches, including, but not limited to, gender studies, biblical studies, cultural studies and ritual studies, and to discussing all facets of bodily religion, including ritual, clothing, body modifications, and gender.

Chairs

Peter-Ben Smit, VU University Amsterdam, Utrecht University/Old Catholic Seminary.

Karin Neutel, University of Groningen.

Sessions

Cordoba 2015

For the 2015 meeting in Cordoba, we welcome the focus of the meeting in general on traditions of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Since the subject of the body lends itself well to interdisciplinary and inter-religious approaches, we particularly invite research that is concerned with practices that occur in multiple religious traditions, such as circumcision.