010087 VO Religion and Sound Media: A Cultural History of Sense Perception (2023S)

Western religious traditions have been always bound up with different perceptual projects governing the management of the senses, in which the sensory experience was both restrained, disciplined and celebrated. By focusing both on discourses around the senses and on the ways in which the sensorium was exercised in day-to-day practice, the seminar will consider not only how different religious systems valued and shaped specific modes of sense perception, but also how historical patterns of sensory experience helped to construct religious identities.
In response to the historiographical narratives privileging the role of vision in Western culture (“ocularcentrism”, literacy thesis, “Gutenberg revolution”), the course will pay special attention to the sense of hearing, or “the second sense”. Taking hearing as a point of departure, students will be encouraged to examine religion across historical media formats and practices of mediation. Special consideration shall be given to the role of the senses in moments of historical and cultural transformations, where new and established media and modes of sensation are often in conflict. The course will offer a cross-disciplinary conception of the history of religion as a history of sensory mediation, making use of approaches from media and social history, anthropology, aesthetics of religion, and the history of science.

Aims:

After completing this course, students will be
• familiar with the main theoretical perspective in the cultural study of the senses
• be familiar with research topics in the history of religion and sound/listening
• be able to critically interpret the role of sensory mediation in religious traditions and formulate their own research questions.
Methods:
• Seminar discussions based on close reading of assigned text.
• Short lectures combined with group work during seminars.