Rewilding Religion: Affect and Animal Dance
Issue: Vol 46 No. 3-4 (2017)
Journal: Bulletin for the Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
DOI: 10.1558/bsor.33270
Abstract:
This article follows just one of the numerous filaments that emerge from Schaefer’s proposition and its configuration: perception. The aim in not to purely analyse and critique Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power (2015), but rather to enter into an ‘animal dance’ with it. The discussion-dance seeks to contribute to the space deftly opened by Schaefer in which theoretical accounts of religious affect that exist ‘outside of language’ may be developed. Centrally, it asks: How do we perceive and represent the dance? Indeed, the case studies found in Religious Affects have already proffered a response to that question. This modest contribution aims to further explore how scholars may take account of elusive immateriality — forces, emotion, energy etc. — methodologically. In taking up this challenge the central focus is on the utility of embodied perception and the rendering of such knowledge in academic discourse.
Author: Jay Johnston
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