Preliminary Programme

Tue 13 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 14 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 15 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 16 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 13 April 2010 8.30
F-1 REL01 Methodological, Conceptual and Theoretical Issues in the Study of Religion
Vestibule, muziekcentrum
Network: Religion Chair: Peter Versteeg
Organizers: - Discussant: Edwin Koster
Jan Bleyen : Materialities of Absence and the Study of Religion
In this paper, I will demonstrate how the study of mourning practices, in specific embodied actions that involve things which refer to the deceased, offers a fruitful focus to unravel how religion has transformed in radical ways during the last few decades.

Aline Coutinho : Compared "post-life sociology" in a same religous matrix: how Hell and Heaven can tell us about Earth
Christianity is a major religion matrix in the occidental world. Many social scientists, such as Louis Dumont and Marshall Sahlins, tend to relate it to ideological (meaning values and ideas) context, namely the modernity. This paper intends to show the non homogenous character of the features of post-life in this ... (Show more)
Christianity is a major religion matrix in the occidental world. Many social scientists, such as Louis Dumont and Marshall Sahlins, tend to relate it to ideological (meaning values and ideas) context, namely the modernity. This paper intends to show the non homogenous character of the features of post-life in this dominant religion in Western societies. Instead, the figures that compose Hell and Heaven in literature, paintings, sculptures, movies and other artistically and religiously sources are not similar from place to place or times to times. In other words, we must not speak in a transcendental Hell or Heaven inside Christianity.
The paper will focus on the figure of Satan, God, punishments and salvations in different contexts. First, to show the history of this imaginary in European countries (and even intending to not present it as unity of representations); then to show in Brazil’s Northeastern, a place where Christian values were particularly modified to fit the very arid place and culture. Satan and God present different characters and images in these two continents. Not to mention through time.
We must say, then, that the comparative perspective shows us that even the most transcendental things that might happen is nonetheless imbedded in a cultural position in time and place. (Show less)

Johan Roeland, Peter Versteeg : In and out of experiential religiosity: Implications for Participatory fieldwork
The ‘turn to experience’ has been described as one of the most defining characteristics of contemporary religion, a feature that is most often related to the deinstitutionalization of modern religion. Research on religion in modern societies therefore increasingly concentrates on the description of the experiential dimensions of contemporary religion. This ... (Show more)
The ‘turn to experience’ has been described as one of the most defining characteristics of contemporary religion, a feature that is most often related to the deinstitutionalization of modern religion. Research on religion in modern societies therefore increasingly concentrates on the description of the experiential dimensions of contemporary religion. This is in particular the case with respect to the study of spirituality – the pivotal form of contemporary religion. The turn to experience, however, asks for something more than just the observation that a particular dimension (i.e. experience) has become of greater value for practitioners of religion. It is important to see that religious experience is mediated in religious communities and networks. Dimensions which have long time been central to the social-scientific study of religion, but are maligned in the practitioners discourse and, surprisingly, in the social-scientific discourse as well, such as authority, power and belief, turn out to be of lasting significance in the mediation and construction of religious experience. In this contribution, the authors discuss the social construction of religious experience in contemporary spirituality. Furthermore, they reflect on the methodological challenges of experiential religion for social-scientific students of religion. How can researchers discover the construction of experience? What are the tools that we can use to accomplish this? (Show less)



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