Museality as a Matrix of the Production, Reception, and Circulation of Knowledge Concerning Religion (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Religion in Europe, 2011
Aesthetics of religion focuses on the sensual and representational aspects of religion and develops appropriate terminological tools. Th e idea of museality as an analytical and heuristic term for culture analysis is specifi ed in the present paper by linking it to the history and dynamics of knowledge. Museums as institutions and cultural practice play a crucial role in the orders and politics of knowledge about religion in Europe. By means of diff erent examples, museality is described as a specifi c and historically generated cultural pattern of perceiving, imagining, and knowing about religion in modernity. Th e examples focus on the production of diff erent qualities of knowledge in exhibitions relating to religion, on transitions between religion and science in museums, and on popularisation as a mode of the circulation of knowledge about religion.
2016
Aesthetics of religion focuses on the sensual and representational aspects of religion and develops appropriate terminological tools. Th e idea of museality as an analyti-cal and heuristic term for culture analysis is specifi ed in the present paper by link-ing it to the history and dynamics of knowledge. Museums as institutions and cultural practice play a crucial role in the orders and politics of knowledge about religion in Europe. By means of diff erent examples, museality is described as a specifi c and historically generated cultural pattern of perceiving, imagining, and knowing about religion in modernity. Th e examples focus on the production of diff erent qualities of knowledge in exhibitions relating to religion, on transitions between religion and science in museums, and on popularisation as a mode of the circulation of knowledge about religion. Th ese refl ections on museality and knowledge dynamics could provide new potentials for inter-connective academic research, as ...
The aim of this paper is to apply the perspective of aesthetics of religion to the context of museality, focusing on notions of the agent and the senses. After sketching diff erent roles of agency in the fi eld of museality and suggesting some theoretically interesting links to research on European history of religions, the notion of agency will be extended to aesthetic, sensual, bodily, cognitive, and other aspects of experience, perception, sense-making, and interpretation of objects and media in the context of museality. Furthermore, questions of how specifi c cultural and religious sense hierarchies aff ect the interaction of agents with museality are raised. Finally, the insights gained are applied to a discussion of the analytical value of the concept of 'museality.'
Temple of the Muses: Beyond the Secular Museum
Around the world, indigenous peoples are reclaiming the museums established by colonial powers, and matters of spirit are taking their rightful place. Museums in Western Europe, on the other hand, exhibit two parallel streams: religion, faith and belief are accepted when somehow exotic or 'other', but when they apply to 'us', the dead hand of secularism descends. Yet museums really are temples of culture, available for inspiration to everyone. Cathedrals and churches once had that role, but in a multicultural society, they are not the universal institutions they once were. Public museums are one of the key institutions, at the heart of our communities, able to provide that level of inclusive cultural inspiration, epiphany and exultation, but they fail by running scared of anything beyond scientific materialism, thereby missing half of life. The contrast between post-colonial museums and those in the former colonial powers is striking. We can learn a great deal from world developments, and by going back to first principles. What, then, would a museum, prepared to be a true temple of the muses, be like?
Museikon. A Journal of Religious Art and Culture | Revue d'art et de culture religieuse
It is the first issue of the annual publication of Museikon, a new museum in Alba Iulia. Between authors: Vladimir Agrigoroaei, Dan Batovici, Estelle Ingrand-Varenne, Dragoș Năstăsoiu, Anna Adashinskaya, Vlad Bedros, Miroslaw P. Kruk, Emanuela Cernea, Vera Tchentsova, Ioan Ovidiu Abrudan, Laura Jiga Iliescu, Atanasia Văetiși. Alți colaboratori: Cristina Bogdan, Constantin Cioc, Korondi Agnes, Sarkadi-Nagy Emese, Irina Baldescu, Henrik von Achen.
Museology and the Sacred. Materials for a discussion. (Ed. François Mairesse), 2018
Religion in Museums: Euthanized Sacredness, in the Beholder’s Eye, or a Multi-Tool for Shifting Needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness (2018) MUSEOLOGY AND THE SACRED - MATERIALS FOR A DISCUSSION Papers from the ICOFOM 41th symposium held in Tehran (Iran), 15-19 October 2018, 145-148. Ed. François Mairesse Religion in museums: Euthanized sacredness, in the beholder’s eye, or a multi-tool for shifting needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness. Abstract for paper for the ICOFOM 41st symposium Museology and the sacred Tehran, 15-19 October 2018. Aimed for the analysis plan Museality-heritage-sacred. by Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate in Museology, Umeå University (Sweden). helena.wangefelt.strom@umu.se What happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with religious meaning is transformed into cultural heritage? What values are added, what are lost, and who is the performing agent? These questions concern what museums do to objects connected to religion, calling for a meditated use of terms such as holy, sacred, religious, and spiritual (all employed in recent research and policy documents by, for example, UNESCO, while in many cases as interchangeable). This paper suggests three models to understand the processes of heritagisation of religion and the factors and agents involved, starting from a historical background in European, in particular Italian, Early Modernity. A frequently used scholarly model depicts the museum as a killing of previous identities, and the objects as provided with entirely new identities, and lives, as museum objects. This view brings on dramatic effects for sacred objects, how they are handled and narrated in the museum, and possibly on how they are viewed by the visitors. The use or not of information signs before sacred objects in museums is an aspect on this matter. The second model is the hybrid identity, where a museum object can be said to possess two authentic identities simultaneously, depending on the views and beliefs of the beholder: authentic sacredness, or authentic art object and evidence of history. This view may fit well with the focus on the individual in our time. The third model presented is based on the two previous ones, and suggests a hybridity not only in identities or living/dead, but defined by the uses of the objects. Even musealized objects can, as in the cases of religious treasuries or of certain religious images in museums, shift identity between museum object, object of devotion (to be carried in processions or used in rituals), legitimization symbol (bishops’ ordinations etc), and, historically, as a monetary reserve to be sold if needed. The identity of the object shifts, also in practice of being looked at behind glass or being used and touched, depending on the use currently applied to it. A distinction between cultual use and cultural use is relevant for this model. I argue that these different approaches to sacred objects in museum pose different museological challenges and possibilities, and also ascribes different agencies to museum staff as well as to the visitors.
Olms (open access), 2022
Museums are receiving currently a lot of public attention with regard to the material objects they host, and the historical and contemporary handling of these objects. There are global public debates about the origins, paths, and futures of museum things. Since at least 2018, with the report on the restitution of African cultural heritage, which Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy presented to the French president, the legitimacy of objects from colonial contexts in museums and collections in the global north has been widely debated. Furthermore, disciplines within cultural studies, including the study of religions, have taken a material turn, and now focus on the material, and thus also on museum things. This has brought the material dimension of religion into the focus of research in various disciplines. Studying materiality can thus open a pathway for potential critique of established patterns in research, historiography, and society, widening our perspective. It was against this multifaceted background that the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion (ZIR) and the Museum of Religions (Religionskundliche Sammlung) of the Philipps-University Marburg, the Museum of the Frankfurt Cathedral, and the GRASSI Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig formed a research network on the topic of Dynamics of Religious Things in Museums (Dynamiken religiöser Dinge im Museum, REDIM in short). This cooperative alliance, under the leadership of the ZIR, is based on the common interest in the relevance of religious materials in museums for social transformation, and in how social processes are reflected by material things.