Rethinking Material Religion in the East: Orientalism and Religious Material Culture in Contemporary Western Academia
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper reviews the historical development of the modern discourse of “Orientalism” and the emergence of material culture as a self-reflexive theoretical transition in the West. Further, it investigates new types of Orientalism in the study of religious material culture. The traditional Orientalist approach to understanding foreign cultures has been abandoned in Western academia for decades owing to its moral judgment and lack of neutrality. However, an implicit form of Orientalism still exists in contemporary Western academia. Material culture appeared as a new trend in understanding the world as not solely dominated by human beings but also transformed by material objects. Religious material culture, far from explaining the reality of religious phenomena in different cultures, constructs new realities to solve problems in Western intellectual discourse. This is the case with the study of Chinese religions and material life.
Authors and Affiliations
Xing Wang
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25930
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020062
- Views 331
- Downloads 10
Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Religions in 2013
The editors of Religions would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2013: Ahmad, Attiya Aksan, Virginia Altamirano, Teofilo Anbar, Ran Baker, Kelly Bakht,...
Secular Volunteerism among Texan Emerging Adults: Exploring Pathways of Childhood and Adulthood Religiosity
Prior research suggests that religiosity, especially public religious participation, is related to greater volunteerism. However, less is known about religious transmission across the life course, in particular whether...
Divine Politicking: A Rhetorical Approach to Deity Possession in the Himalayas
In North India, political leaders are referred to as netas ¯ , and the term netagir ¯ ¯ı is broadly and pejoratively used to describe the self-promotion, political maneuvering, and public rhetoric in which politicians...
Religiosity and Relationship Quality of Dating Relationships: Examining Relationship Religiosity as a Mediator
Individual and romantic partner religiosity are positively associated with marital quality. However, many studies focus on married couples, rather than examining dating relationships, and rely on single-item measures o...
False Gods and the Two Intelligent Questions of Metapsychiatry
This paper explains how the spiritual teaching known as Metapsychiatry, developed by psychiatrist Thomas Hora, employs two questions as its focal educational method. Those questions facilitate phenomenological discernm...