Reviews
"A must for any religious studies department. . ." -Choice "Things gathers up a series of lively and provocative essays. Challenging received understandings of religion as primarily about beliefs (in spiritual beings) as historically derived and impossible to sustain, it draws attention to the centrality of the material in religious practices and debates about the world. This volume deserves a place on the shelf of anyone interested in either religion or materiality or both." -Margaret Weiner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Things is an essential archive for the study of religious materiality and the material study of religion." -David Chidester, author of Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa "A highly spirited and robust materialization of a significant trend in the study of religion. The articles in this remarkably coherent collection speak back to iconoclasm and the ideal or ideology of immateriality as found explicitly in certain practitioners of religion and implicitly in its scholarship. They illustrate the various ways in which material objects function as signs, powers, and mediations, and examine as well the intellectual debates and theological disputations about their functions and effects to which things inevitably give rise." -Michael Lambek, author of The Weight of the Past "The recent scholarly turn to materiality faces special challenges when dealing with the variety of 'immaterialities' proposed by--or merely attributed to the world's religions. At the same time, contemporary attitudes toward materiality often have deep roots in religious traditions. Offering wide-ranging contributions that touch on everything from old questions of iconoclasm to emerging digital technologies, this volume forms a welcome addition to an important and lively conversation." -Webb Keane, University of Michigan "A remarkable and very valuable collection that provides a rare overview of the issue of material religion." - Patrick Eisenlohr, University of Utrecht "A strong collection of essays that advance knowledge in academic fields ranging from history to anthropology, from religious studies to regional studies. The mixing of fields allows multiple perspectives, not always congruent with each other, leaving the reader to work through the differences. Well-respected contributors tell us about "things," and their impact on religious lives. We are left rethinking our relations to the most basic stuff around us." -S. Brent Plate, co-founder and managing editor, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, and author of Blasphemy: Art that Offends ". . . this volume is an invaluable contribution to religious and material culture studies, broadening the scope of both fields by introducing new questions in old contexts, and investing agency in people and spirit in things." -Gabrielle A. Berlinger, Museum Anthropology Review, . . . this volume is an invaluable contribution to religious and material culture studies, broadening the scope of both fields by introducing new questions in old contexts, and investing agency in people and spirit in things. -----Gabrielle A. Berlinger, --Museum Anthropology Review, Things is an essential archive for the study of religious materiality and the material study of religion. -----David Chidester, author of Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa, A highly spirited and robust materialization of a significant trend in thestudy of religion. The articles in this remarkably coherent collectionspeak back to iconoclasm and the ideal or ideology of immateriality as found explicitly in certain practitioners of religion and implicitly in its scholarship. They illustrate the various ways in which material objects function as signs, powers, and mediations, and examine as well the intellectual debates and theological disputations about their functions and effects to which things inevitably give rise., ""A highly spirited and robust materialization of a significant trend in the study of religion. The articles in this remarkably coherent collection speak back to iconoclasm and the ideal or ideology of immateriality as found explicitly in certain practitioners of religion and implicitly in its scholarship. They illustrate the various ways in which material objects function as signs, powers, and mediations, and examine as well the intellectual debates and theological disputations about their functions and effects to which things inevitably give rise."" --Michael Lambek, author of The Weight of the Past, Things gathers up a series of lively and provocative essays. Challenging received understandings of religion as primarily about beliefs (in spiritual beings) as historically derived and impossible to sustain, it draws attention to the centrality of the material in religious practices and debates about the world. This volume deserves a place on the shelf of anyone interested in either religion or materiality--or both. -----Margaret Weiner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, A highly spirited and robust materialization of a significant trend in the study of religion. The articles in this remarkably coherent collection speak back to iconoclasm and the ideal or ideology of immateriality as found explicitly in certain practitioners of religion and implicitly in its scholarship. They illustrate the various ways in which material objects function as signs, powers, and mediations, and examine as well the intellectual debates and theological disputations about their functions and effects to which things inevitably give rise. -----Michael Lambek, author of The Weight of the Past
