Max Stille - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Address: Heidelberg, Germany
less
Uploads
Papers by Max Stille
Stille, M. (2018). Arabic rhetoric and Islamic Homiletics in 20th century South Asia. Zeitschrift... more Stille, M. (2018). Arabic rhetoric and Islamic Homiletics in 20th century South Asia. Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienstudien, 35, 169-216.
Contributions to the History of Concepts, 2016
Sicherheitsgesetze, NRO- und Mediengesetze sowie Antiterrormaßnahmen werden zunehmend als Instrum... more Sicherheitsgesetze, NRO- und Mediengesetze sowie Antiterrormaßnahmen werden zunehmend als Instrumentarien genutzt, um die Handlungsfähigkeit zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure in Bangladesch einzuschränken. Handlungsspielräume werden nicht nur durch staatliche Maßnahmen eingeschränkt. Auch innergesellschaftliche Polarisierungen führen immer häufiger dazu, dass Aktivisten Opfer von Gewalt werden. Zivilgesellschaft darf sich weder einengen lassen noch selber einengen.
Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of R... more Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of Religious studies and Islamic studies. This volume highlights the transcultural dimensions of the theoretical foundations of religious aesthetics. It explores aesthetic experience in the religious field through a series of case studies. These include Islamic sermons from the Middle East and South Asia, Islamic religious chanting, a chapter of the Qurʾān, a German performance artist, Indian rasa theory, and Arabic and Bengali literature. Together, the authors demonstrate that the analysis of the aesthetic forms of religious mediation across regions and genres is a fruitful approach to transcultural studies.
Contributions to the History of Concepts, 2016
Journal of Religious History, 2021
The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2017
Emotions are largely interpersonal and inextricably intertwined with communication; public perfor... more Emotions are largely interpersonal and inextricably intertwined with communication; public performances evoke collective emotions. This article brings together considerations of poetic assemblies known as ‘mushāʿira’ in Pakistan with reflections on sermon congregations known as ‘waʿz mahfil’ in Bangladesh. The public performance spaces and protocols, decisive for building up collective emotions, exhibit many parallels between both genres. The cultural history of the mushāʿira shows how an elite cultural tradition has been popularised in service to the modern nation state. A close reading of the changing forms of reader address shows how the modern nazm genre has been deployed for exhorting the collective, much-expanded Urdu public sphere. Emphasising the sensory aspects of performance, the analysis of contemporary waʿz mahfils focuses on the employment of particular chanting techniques. These relate to both the transcultural Islamic soundsphere and Bengali narrative traditions, and ...
Journal of Religious History, 2021
This chapter analyses a rhetorical technique that is decisive for the aesthetic experience of Isl... more This chapter analyses a rhetorical technique that is decisive for the aesthetic experience of Islamic sermons in contemporary Bangladesh. I show how the performance of narratives in sermons relies on musical-bodily as well as imaginative expectations and expertise to evoke heightened emotions. I furthermore sketch a historical trajectory that demonstrates that the chanting in the sermons is part of the history of Bengali literature—from epics performed at regional courts to folk ballads—and of the history of South-Asian melodrama. This trajectory interlinks “secular” and “religious” aesthetics and has repercussions for the analytical terms we use to describe rhetorical phenomena. For this conceptual discussion, I take up the often pejoratively used term “melodrama.” Rather than cast it as a low variant of excessive emotions juxtaposed with the sublime, I argue that the concept can be useful for historicizing and contextualizing the evocation of religious feelings.
Stille, M. (2018). Arabic rhetoric and Islamic Homiletics in 20th century South Asia. Zeitschrift... more Stille, M. (2018). Arabic rhetoric and Islamic Homiletics in 20th century South Asia. Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienstudien, 35, 169-216.
Contributions to the History of Concepts, 2016
Sicherheitsgesetze, NRO- und Mediengesetze sowie Antiterrormaßnahmen werden zunehmend als Instrum... more Sicherheitsgesetze, NRO- und Mediengesetze sowie Antiterrormaßnahmen werden zunehmend als Instrumentarien genutzt, um die Handlungsfähigkeit zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure in Bangladesch einzuschränken. Handlungsspielräume werden nicht nur durch staatliche Maßnahmen eingeschränkt. Auch innergesellschaftliche Polarisierungen führen immer häufiger dazu, dass Aktivisten Opfer von Gewalt werden. Zivilgesellschaft darf sich weder einengen lassen noch selber einengen.
Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of R... more Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of Religious studies and Islamic studies. This volume highlights the transcultural dimensions of the theoretical foundations of religious aesthetics. It explores aesthetic experience in the religious field through a series of case studies. These include Islamic sermons from the Middle East and South Asia, Islamic religious chanting, a chapter of the Qurʾān, a German performance artist, Indian rasa theory, and Arabic and Bengali literature. Together, the authors demonstrate that the analysis of the aesthetic forms of religious mediation across regions and genres is a fruitful approach to transcultural studies.
Contributions to the History of Concepts, 2016
Journal of Religious History, 2021
The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2017
Emotions are largely interpersonal and inextricably intertwined with communication; public perfor... more Emotions are largely interpersonal and inextricably intertwined with communication; public performances evoke collective emotions. This article brings together considerations of poetic assemblies known as ‘mushāʿira’ in Pakistan with reflections on sermon congregations known as ‘waʿz mahfil’ in Bangladesh. The public performance spaces and protocols, decisive for building up collective emotions, exhibit many parallels between both genres. The cultural history of the mushāʿira shows how an elite cultural tradition has been popularised in service to the modern nation state. A close reading of the changing forms of reader address shows how the modern nazm genre has been deployed for exhorting the collective, much-expanded Urdu public sphere. Emphasising the sensory aspects of performance, the analysis of contemporary waʿz mahfils focuses on the employment of particular chanting techniques. These relate to both the transcultural Islamic soundsphere and Bengali narrative traditions, and ...
Journal of Religious History, 2021
This chapter analyses a rhetorical technique that is decisive for the aesthetic experience of Isl... more This chapter analyses a rhetorical technique that is decisive for the aesthetic experience of Islamic sermons in contemporary Bangladesh. I show how the performance of narratives in sermons relies on musical-bodily as well as imaginative expectations and expertise to evoke heightened emotions. I furthermore sketch a historical trajectory that demonstrates that the chanting in the sermons is part of the history of Bengali literature—from epics performed at regional courts to folk ballads—and of the history of South-Asian melodrama. This trajectory interlinks “secular” and “religious” aesthetics and has repercussions for the analytical terms we use to describe rhetorical phenomena. For this conceptual discussion, I take up the often pejoratively used term “melodrama.” Rather than cast it as a low variant of excessive emotions juxtaposed with the sublime, I argue that the concept can be useful for historicizing and contextualizing the evocation of religious feelings.
Islamic sermon gatherings are a central form of public piety and public expression in contemporar... more Islamic sermon gatherings are a central form of public piety and public expression in contemporary Bangladesh. Held since the 19th century, waz mahfils became so popular that it is today possible to participate in them on a daily basis in many regions of the country. Despite their significance in the rise of popular politics, the sermons are often disregarded as Islamist propaganda and very little research is dedicated to them. This book provides unprecedented access into these sermon gatherings. Based on fieldwork and interviews, Max Stille analyses an archive of several dozens of sermons. He shows how popular preaching shapes roles and rules of what can be said, imagined, and felt. Waz mahfils are a participatory practice of the labouring classes in which religious, political and poetic consensus overlap. In them, Islamic tenets and morals are part of dramatic narrations, vocal art and affective communication, ranging from immersion and upheaval to laughter about political jokes and parody. Suggesting new ways to interpret musical and performative poetics of Islamic speech, this book calls for expanding conceptions of civic participation and public discourse and rethinking the role of the senses and religious aesthetics in Islam.
Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of R... more Religious aesthetics have gained increasing importance over the past few years in the fields of Religious studies and Islamic studies. This volume highlights the transcultural dimensions of the theoretical foundations of religious aesthetics. It explores aesthetic experience in the religious field through a series of case studies. These include Islamic sermons from the Middle East and South Asia, Islamic religious chanting, a chapter of the Qurʾān, a German performance artist, Indian rasa theory, and Arabic and Bengali literature. Together, the authors demonstrate that the analysis of the aesthetic forms of religious mediation across regions and genres is a fruitful approach to transcultural studies.
