Semiotics of Religion
Semiotics of Religion

Author: Robert A. Yelle

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1441172378

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Following the heyday of Lévi-Straussian structuralism in the 1970s-80s, little attention has been paid by scholars of religion to semiotics. Semiotics of Religion reassesses key semiotic theories in the light of religious data. Yelle examines the semiotics of religion from structural and historical perspectives, drawing on Peircean linguistic anthropology, Jakobsonian poetics, comparative religion and several theological traditions. This book pays particular attention to the transformation of religious symbolism under modernization and the rise of a culture of the printed book. Among the topics addressed are: - ritual repetition and the poetics of ritual performance - magic and the belief in a natural (iconic) language - Protestant literalism and iconoclasm - disenchantment and secularization - Holiness, arbitrariness, and agency Building from the legacy of structuralism while interrogating several key doctrines of that movement, Semiotics of Religion both introduces the field to a new generation and charts a course for future research.

Changing Signs of Truth
Changing Signs of Truth

Author: Crystal L. Downing

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2012-05-15

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 083086685X

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Crystal Downing brings the postmodern theory of semiotics within reach for today's evangelists. Following the idea of the sign through Scripture, church history and the academy, Downing shows you how signs work and how sensitivity to their dynamics can make or break an attempt to communicate truth.

Postmodernism and the Revolution in Religious Theory
Postmodernism and the Revolution in Religious Theory

Author: Carl A. Raschke

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 0813933064

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While the academic study of religion has increased almost exponentially in the past fifty years, general theories of religion have been in significant decline. In his new book, Carl Raschke offers the first systematic exploration of how the postmodern philosophical theories of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zizek have contributed significantly to the development of a theory of religion as a whole. The bold paradigm he uses to articulate the framework for a revolution in religious theory comes from semiotics--namely, the problem of the sign and the "singularity" or "event horizon" from which a sign is generated.

Sign, Method and the Sacred
Sign, Method and the Sacred

Author: Jason Cronbach Van Boom

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-08-23

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 3110694948

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To what extent can semiotics illuminate key problems in religious studies, given the centrality of symbols, language, and other modes of signification in religion and theology? The volume explores semiotic methodologies for the study of religion, with an emphasis on their critical and creative reconfigurations. The contributors come from different specialties, such as cognitive science, ethnography, linguistics, communication studies, art studies, religious studies, philosophy of religion, and theology. Part One consists of chapters focusing on theoretical perspectives. Part two focuses on applications in texts and case studies while still considering methodological issues. Many specific traditions and perspectives are taken up, such as C. S. Peirce, A. J. Greimas and the Paris School, Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, Bruno Latour and material semiotics, linguistic anthropology, social semiotics, cognitive semiotics, embodied and enactive perspectives on language and mind, semiotics of the image and iconicity, multimodality, intertextuality, and semiotics of colors. The book provides readers with a succinct overview of how contemporary semiotics can be useful in understanding a broad array of topics in the study of religion.

Political Religion, Everyday Religion: Sociological Trends
Political Religion, Everyday Religion: Sociological Trends

Author: Pål Repstad

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-04-09

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9004397965

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As the title suggests, Political Religion, Everyday Religion: Sociological Trends reflects upon two important trends that have recently emerged in the sociology of religion. Firstly, there is an increasing interest in the interplay between religion and politics. Religion has moved from being almost ignored by sociologists to being acknowledged – some would even say overrated – as an important political factor. Secondly, ordinary people’s everyday religion has likewise become an important topic for many researchers. In this book, James Beckford, Inger Furseth and other prominent scholars present critical discussions and empirical studies of both political and everyday religion, and the editor, Pål Repstad, shows how these two trends should enter into a closer dialogue. The book is essential for both students and experienced researchers in the sociology of religion. Contributors are: James A. Beckford, Inger Furseth, Kristina Grundetjern, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Ida Marie Høeg, Nils Martinius Justvik, Bjarte Leer-Helgesen, Paul Leer-Salvesen, Anne Løvland, Tomas Rasmussen, Pål Repstad, Tale Steen-Johnsen, and Irene Trysnes

Religious Conversion and Identity
Religious Conversion and Identity

Author: Massimo Leone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-06-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1134402465

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The way in which people change and represent their spiritual evolution is often determined by recurrent language structures. Through the analysis of ancient and modern stories and their words and images, this book describes the nature of conversion through explorations of the encounter with the religious message, the discomfort of spiritual uncertainty, the loss of personal and social identity, the anxiety of destabilization, the reconstitution of the self and the discovery of a new language of the soul.

Language and Religion
Language and Religion

Author: Robert Yelle

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 1614514321

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This volume draws on an interdisciplinary team of authors to advance the study of the religious dimensions of communication and the linguistic aspects of religion. Contributions cover: poetry, iconicity, and iconoclasm in religious language; semiotic ideologies in traditional religions and in secularism; and the role of materiality and writing in religious communication. This volume will provoke new approaches to language and religion.

Semiotic Theory and Sacramentality in Hugh of Saint Victor
Semiotic Theory and Sacramentality in Hugh of Saint Victor

Author: Ruben Angelici

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1351106317

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This book offers Hugh of Saint Victor’s early scholastic thoughts on sacrament in order to re-discover the pre-modern theological understanding of ontological signification. The Christian understanding of sacrament through the category of ‘signs’ results in a theology that inherently shares in the philosophical notion of semiotics. Yet, through the advent of post-structuralism, current sign-theory is effectively shaped by post-Kantian, ontological foundations. This can lead to misinterpretations of the sacramental theology that predates this intellectual turn. The book works within a context of Christological, realist mysticism. Such an approach allows mutually informing debates in semiotic development and studies on sacramental theology to sit side-by-side. In addition, as a work of ressourcement, influenced by the methodology and concerns of the historical, French Ressourcement, this study seeks to continue an engagement with some of the most promising sacramental positions that have emerged throughout twentieth-century theology, particularly with the revival of interest in Victorine theology. By providing an examination of sacramentality and theories of signification in the early scholastic theology of Hugh of Saint Victor, this book gives fresh impetus to the theology surrounding sacrament. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of mysticism, theologians of sacrament, philosophical theologians, and philosophers of religion.

Semiotics of Religion
Semiotics of Religion

Author: Robert A. Yelle

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2012-11-08

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 144116765X

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Following the heyday of Lévi-Straussian structuralism in the 1970s-80s, little attention has been paid by scholars of religion to semiotics. Semiotics of Religion reassesses key semiotic theories in the light of religious data. Yelle examines the semiotics of religion from structural and historical perspectives, drawing on Peircean linguistic anthropology, Jakobsonian poetics, comparative religion and several theological traditions. This book pays particular attention to the transformation of religious symbolism under modernization and the rise of a culture of the printed book. Among the topics addressed are: - ritual repetition and the poetics of ritual performance - magic and the belief in a natural (iconic) language - Protestant literalism and iconoclasm - disenchantment and secularization - Holiness, arbitrariness, and agency Building from the legacy of structuralism while interrogating several key doctrines of that movement, Semiotics of Religion both introduces the field to a new generation and charts a course for future research.

The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion
The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion

Author: Michael Stausberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-11-17

Total Pages: 881

ISBN-13: 0191045896

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The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion provides a comprehensive overview of the academic study of religion. Written by an international team of leading scholars, its fifty-one chapters are divided thematically into seven sections. The first section addresses five major conceptual aspects of research on religion. Part two surveys eleven main frameworks of analysis, interpretation, and explanation of religion. Reflecting recent turns in the humanities and social sciences, part three considers eight forms of the expression of religion. Part four provides a discussion of the ways societies and religions, or religious organizations, are shaped by different forms of allocation of resources. Other chapters in this section consider law, the media, nature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and tourism. Part five reviews important developments, distinctions, and arguments for each of the selected topics. The study of religion addresses religion as a historical phenomenon and part six looks at seven historical processes. Religion is studied in various ways by many disciplines, and this Handbook shows that the study of religion is an academic discipline in its own right. The disciplinary profile of this volume is reflected in part seven, which considers the history of the discipline and its relevance. Each chapter in the Handbook references at least two different religions to provide fresh and innovative perspectives on key issues in the field. This authoritative collection will advance the state of the discipline and is an invaluable reference for students and scholars.