Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati

Second Skin: Körper, Kleidung, Religion

Aktuelle offentliche, mediale und politische Debatten fokussieren auf Korper und Kleidung im Zusammenhang mit Religion. »Second Skin« bietet anhand der Kategorien Identitat, Reprasentation, Produktion und Rezeption sowie Regulierung einen kulturwissenschaftlichen Zugang zu Kleidung, Korper und Religion. Ausgehend von einem Konzept des Korpers als prozessuale, identitatsstiftende Grundlage der Person uber die Analyse von Praktiken und Reprasentationen von Korper und Kleidung bis hin zur Analyse offentlicher Machtdiskurse und Selbstregulierungen tragen in diesem Band Forschende aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen zu einer religionstheoretischen Erfassung von Kleidung bei.

Book Review: Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch (ed.), The Bible in Motion

This Handbook offers an illuminating insight into one of the most fascinating aspects of the history of the reception of the Bible. The two volumes explore many facets of the filmic adaptation of the Bible across cultures, religious and cinematic traditions and genres. The expression in the title in Motion refers to different aspects of the mutual influence of the Bible and film. On the one hand, in Motion focuses on film as the technology of moving images, which relates to the entanglement of religious traditions and media innovation. On the other hand, in Motion highlights the dynamics that keep alive a sacred text: transmission processes are possible only if each generation re-reads and adapts the text. Film can thus be understood as a crucial language in which biblical narratives have been re-read and received since the end of the 19th century. The rich collection of contributions is organised in two volumes, each with three parts. In this review, I will limit myself to introducing the main sections. The first volume begins with “Biblical Characters and Stories (Hebrew Bible)”. In this part, filmic adaptations of principal characters and narratives from the Hebrew Bible are discussed: the articles focus on Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Samson and Delilah, David and Esther. The next part, “Film Genres and Stories”, is dedicated to the influence of the Bible on moving images in specific film genres. This section reaches from productions from the silent era to Western, horror film and comedy to anime, to name just a few examples. “Biblical Themes and Genres” analyses filmic contributions to central topics in the reception of the Bible: God, Satan, creation, theodicy, lament, afterlife and apocalypse. The second volume starts with “Biblical Character and Stories (New Testament)”, with articles on Jesus, Judas and female characters in the Gospels, Paul and the early church, as well as Revelation. A chapter on Jews and Judaism completes this part. “Cinema and Auteurs” collects a highly interesting selection of studies on influential directors from different film traditions and the impact of

Book review: Sébastien Fevry/Serge Goriely/Arnaud Join-Lambert (eds.), Regards croisés sur Incendies

Incendies (Fires , Denis Villeneuve , CN/FR 2011 ) is a feature film that offers strik¬ ing interpretative resonances as we seek to understand extreme violence in the contemporary world , for it highlights religious legitimation , war , exile , the quest for identity , and the desire to stop this destructive , nihilistic turmoil . Through the art of film , this outstanding work establishes a disturbing tension between the realistic images of film and the universalization of violence as an aspect of the human condition . The film deals with the excessively violent heritage of a female character , Nawal Marwan , during a civil war in an undefined Near Eastern country . Having lived through an endless series of highly traumatic experiences that included the murder of her lover by her brothers , the abandonment of her first child , a massacre , the killing of a party leader , jail , torture , rape , and the birth of her twins in jail , Marwan finally leaves her country for Canada , where she raises her children , works as a secretary , and eventually dies . In an unconventional testa ¬ ment , she calls on her twins , Jeanne and Simon , to confront their origins , for posthumously she asks them to find their father and brother and give them a letter . In narrating their quest for their unknown relatives in a world on which vio¬ lence has left indelible marks , the film analyses the response to their terrifying inheritance by a generation born in exile , by people both geographically and psychologically distant from the war and its consequences . The film expresses in a metaphorical and universal tragic language the challenge of confronting such a violent history . The film ’s references to civil war function variously , with its presentation of war realistic but unspecific . The film itself is an adaptation of the stageplay Incendies by Lebanese author Wajdi Mouawad , first performed in 2003 . The film does not adopt the step -by narrative of the play . Instead , it re¬ sponds to the play by exploring tragedy as a possible framework for expressing the constraints and challenges of the human condition as it encounters war and

Approaching Religious Symbols in the Public Space. Contemporary Art and Museums as Places of Negotiation

This essay responds to Sigrid Schade’s contribution by outlining the multilayered meaning-making processes deployed by the use of religious symbolism in visual culture. Referring in a concise way to a selected example of contemporary art, it drafts possible methodological approaches to a challenging field of research.

Religion und Medien

Religiose Traditionen und Symbolsysteme bieten eine Orientierung, die viele Lebensbereiche einer Gemeinschaft und von Menschen miteinschliesst. Diese Orientierung wird mit dem jeweiligen Entwurf von umfassenden Weltbildern geleistet, die die Welt als Gesamtheit reprasentieren und ihr einen «religiosen» Sinn verleihen.1 Religiose Weltbilder sind aber nicht nur Reprasentationen des Lebens und der Welt, sondern auch Modelle dafur, wie die Welt und das Leben sein sollten. Darstellungen und Bedeutungen werden folglich mit Werten verknupft.

Erkundungen von Gegenwelten. Zur Orientierungsleistung "mythischer" Reisen am Beispiel zweier mesopotamischer Texte

The present article focuses on the function of mythic journeys with regard to the problem of death and the transience of human life in two selected Mesopotamian literary sources: the Gilgamesh-Epic IX–XI and the Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld. The selected texts are analysed and compared from the perspective of a functionalist definition of religious symbol systems, with particular attention to the transformation involved in travelling through different cosmic regions. The structure of the journey, the characterisation of the different regions visited by the protagonist, and the changes provoked by the mythic travel evince similarities and differences in the strategies employed to produce a religious orientation dealing with the ineluctable limits of life.