Synopses & Reviews
A leading scholar explores the importance of physical objects and sensory experience in the practice of religion.
A History of Religion in 5½ Objects takes a fresh and much-needed approach to the study of that contentious yet vital area of human culture: religion. Arguing that religion must be understood in the first instance as deriving from rudimentary human experiences, from lived, embodied practices, S. Brent Plate asks us to put aside, for the moment, questions of belief and abstract ideas. Instead, beginning with the desirous, incomplete human body, he asks us to focus on five ordinary objects — stones, incense, drums, crosses, and bread — with which we connect in our pursuit of religious meaning and fulfillment. As Plate considers each of these objects, he explores how the world’s religious traditions have put each of them to different uses throughout the millennia. Religion, it turns out, has as much to do with our bodies as our beliefs. Maybe even more.
Review
“The well-written and accessible text surprises and intrigues…This is an
elegant and sensitive book. Highly recommended to general readers open
to a different perspective on religious practice.” Library Journal, starred review
Review
“[Plate’s] book is an extended exercise in the materiality of faith. You
might even call it a manifesto. Blurring the lines between inquiry and
advocacy, it doesn’t just ask us to consider the multiple ways in which
religion is a tactile phenomenon. It also calls on us to affirm and
perhaps even to celebrate the sensory elements of faith….Plate’s
interpretations, his reading of material culture, are often downright
revelatory.” Jenna Weissman Joselit, The New Republic
Review
“Provocative, contemplative, and beautifully written . . . Plate’s very
sensual, poetic style of writing encourages a kind of sensory
mindfulness that, when you stop reading and look around, begins to
change how you see things and your relationships with them.” Timothy Beal, Los Angeles Review of Books
Synopsis
A leading scholar explores the importance of physical objects and sensory experience in the practice of religion.
A History of Religion in 51/2 Objects takes a fresh and much-needed approach to the study of that contentious yet vital area of human culture: religion. Arguing that religion must be understood in the first instance as deriving from rudimentary human experiences, from lived, embodied practices, S. Brent Plate asks us to put aside, for the moment, questions of belief and abstract ideas. Instead, beginning with the desirous, incomplete human body, he asks us to focus on five ordinary objects stones, incense, drums, crosses, and bread with which we connect in our pursuit of religious meaning and fulfillment. As Plate considers each of these objects, he explores how the world s religious traditions have put each of them to different uses throughout the millennia. Religion, it turns out, has as much to do with our bodies as our beliefs. Maybe even more.
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