A call for papers from my mates Nadja and Simone in Heidelberg: "Religions on the Internet – Aesthetics and the Dimensions of the Senses"
Special issue of "Online ? Heidelberg Internet Journal", due for publication in October 2010
We herewith invite scholars from Religious, Cultural, Social, Media Studies and other related disciplines to hand in proposals for possible articles which deal with questions of the aesthtics and sensual dimensions of religions and rituals on the Internet.
When we look on the various representations of religious groups and individuals on personal homepages, in weblogs, in virtual worlds or the like and when we follow their communications on religious topics online, the visual and auditive aspects of the medium seem to play a major role. Using pictures, videos, icons, as well as music and other sounds, the internet users can design a multisensual virtual environment which might implicate its own notion of ‘aesthetics’. This might be the case in e.g. a virtual Church environment which is embedded in an area with plashy waterfalls and bird sound instead of organ music or for religious groups in social networks who link to home-made Youtube videos, online games and other homepages. But we also must not forget the connection to these sensual dimensions that refer to and rely on the (offline) bodies of religious practitioners.
Religions and rituals on the Internet might most probably provoke emotional or other physical reactions. Furthermore, in transfer processes between the offline and online realm there might be a redefinition of what seems to be an ‘appropriate’ design for religious settings.
As the aesthetic and sensual dimensions of religions and rituals on the internet are so far a mostly neglected area of research, we call upon theoretical and methodical reflection as well as on empiric studies referring to these topics. We are looking forward to receive the title and a short abstract (max. 250 words) of the planned article until 31st of March 2010.
Further important dates and deadlines are:
April 15th: Notification on the acceptance of your proposal by the editors
August 31st: Submission deadline for full article
September 15th: Deadline for comments, requests of revisions by the editors (if necessary)September 31st: Submission deadline for revised articles
November, 1st: Publication of the Online Journal
Please send your abstract to the following Email-addresses:
Simone.Heidbrink AT zegk.uni-heidelberg.de
Nadja.Miczek AT zegk.uni-heidelberg.de
A big thank you to Fr Jose at IMPACT for hosting me for a week, driving me around everywhere, making sure I was well fed (oh, I was so well fed!), and introducing me to hundreds of people.
Here are some pictures of all the people I met at the various colleges and seminaries. Everyone was beautifully welcoming, and treated me like royalty. These guys should be careful because a white guy like me could get very used to that.
Well, that’s what all the road signs read, and it isn’t just because Kerala is amazingly beautiful, with every piece of dirt supporting lush coconut jungle, as you can see in this video.
It’s also because Kerala is one of the world’s most religious places on the planet, and when it comes to religious diversity, may be one of the world’s most peaceful. Though predominantly Hindu, Kerala claims to be the oldest Christian and Muslim missionary outposts. It is believed St Thomas arrived with his Gospel as early as 60AD, and many say that European colonialists of the second millennium were so cut to find the place already Christianised. Here we have photos of the Syrian Orthodox Church of St Thomas (you know him, that guy who didn’t really believe Jesus came back, and according to the Syrians, was the only witness of Mary’s Assumption), and a complex to commemorate his arrival at the point of his disembarkation. The shrine inside allegedly contains a piece of his arm. A bell tolls automatically at the shrine’s opening, calling all pilgrims, including many who have come from some other parts of his corpse in Ortona, Italy.
According to my good mate Fr Jose, my gracious host throughout my stay, Kerala is about forty percent, Christian, and the Catholic:Protestant:Evangelical ration is about 2:1:1. Though of all religious advertising that I could see on TV and posters and billboards on every street, most were either Hindu or Evangelical. Indeed January and February seem to be the state’s festival season, and the time for the world’s pilgrims to come together, whether they be Hindu, Hare Krishna, Jane or how-cool-is-JC-right-now dudes. And like Hindus, Christians proudly wear their religion of the sleeve, and their house, and their car etc. I couldn’t tell if way they adorned themselves or their belongings was more to evangelise than it was some breed of Animist-Christian sanctification.
Though there are about as many Christians in Kerala as there are Hindus, Islam is running a very close third (a ratio of about 4:4:3). Islam has been here since the seventh century, and was welcomed by the people, to the extent that the first mosque was commissioned by the then Hindu king. The mosque itself contains a museum that celebrates not only Islam but the state’s Hindu and Christian heritage. Its curator wanted to offer a tour of the entire complex, and told much of how the three religions lived and worked in harmony in Kerala, but he found it difficult to share my attention with all the attendants present who wanted to tell me their own stories of the place. I think they saw me as a bit of a weird novelty, and assumed that because I greeted them in Arabic, that I was Muslim. I didn’t really try to correct them– not sure if that was a good thing to do or not.
This above is the mosque, and below is a model of the three major religious centres of Kerala, used in presentations on the place’s history.
But Kerala is also Hindu, and I saw brilliant examples of this. I have actually no idea whether these were weekly events or if it was a particular time of year, but I saw houses and families everywhere being greeted by elephants and drums, and music seemed to fill the air.
Ah, elephants, so many elephants…
In the middle of my first night in the country I was woken by what I thought was the boogey man finally coming to get me, only to discover a little later (after much embarassment) that my room overlooked a hidden Hindu temple, where people meet at all hours to chant. It eventually became my nightly lullaby… (sorry there’s not much to see in this video, but it is like 4am).
