S. Brent Plate

The origin and mission of Material Religion

Abstract Beginning its sixth year of publication, Material Religion is an interdisciplinary journal that seeks to gather the best work from around the world engaged in materializing the study of religions. The editors welcome original scholarship on any religion and from any period in human history that treats material objects and practices as primary evidence and engages in critical reflection on the cultural construction of materiality. In this article the editors reflect on the formation and format of the journal, the force and direction of its articles and other features, the question of what constitutes the material culture of religion, and finally the role of materiality in the current study of religions. Along the way, the editors consider new theories and concerns that have been taken up in the journals pages and address the range of disciplines and interests that are represented in the different departments of the journal

Material religion's first decade

For the first issue of our tenth year of publishing Material Religion, the editors wanted to use this opportunity to reflect on the first decade, and think ahead to the next one. We framed this as a conversation among the four of us who oversee the content of the journal. When the editors first met together and began to articulate the scope and aims for this new journal, we had to come up with a title and subtitle. At that time, the phrase “material religion” was not in common usage. One early response to the title was, “Material Religion? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” Of course, the answer is unfortunately “Yes” if one looks at the many studies that stress the intellectual contents, arguments, doctrines of religions. “Religion” is still defined by many people— scholars and believers—as a set of abstract beliefs. And so we conceived a subtitle that was intended to work toward an inclusive view of subject matter (i.e. “objects, art, and belief”), but also provoke some curiosity. Now, somewhat due to the success of the journal, the phrase “material religion” can be used without explanation or justification. And it is a phrase that we can honestly say is used around the world, as the geographical diversity of our authors and their subject matter attests. But we have continued to wonder about the subtitle of the journal. Some of us would prefer to eliminate the reference to “art” because we do far more than art and have no interest in privileging fine art. In fact, we avoid publishing work that belongs principally in art history journals. “Objects” is problematic as a designation for our subject matter since we are quite interested in “practices.” Indeed, some of us are even more concerned with what people do with things than the things themselves. And where are “bodies” in this parsing of materiality? The task, it would seem, is not to choose between bodies, practices, and things, but to understand their hybrid as the proper focus of religious materiality. Finally, “belief” has been thoroughly critiqued for several decades as something that belongs to some religions such as Christianity, but not to others (e.g. Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism) as a primary feature of their self-understandings. Not wanting to privilege one religious tradition over another, we’ve continued to ponder the utility of any reference to “belief.” And yet believing is arguably a standard ingredient in any epistemology—if not religious belief, then certainly the belief that the earth will not slide out from beneath one’s feet from one minute to the next. David Hume spoke of belief in this sense: as the epistemological glue that keeps the world apprehensible. So perhaps it is possible to think about materializing belief. If so, if belief is more than affirming a proposition, if belief can refer to attitudes that emerge from the steady deposit of practices over time, then we can use the idea to help us understand embodiment as a learned set of behaviors, or techniques, as Marcel Mauss once wrote in a splendid essay, “Techniques of the Body.” Over the span of ten years, the journal has published work by scholars from at least twenty fields. The breakdown of the disciplines (by departmental or institutional affiliation) in which authors work is as follows:

The arts of the book and calligraphy

which might help other museums to tackle this complex issue. First, curators should make their hermeneutic stands clear and transparent. Curators should not be afraid of sharing and explaining how they proceeded, failed, and overcame problems. One concrete example is the performance of public rituals in the museum. Objects are only holy for certain people in certain circumstances (Waardenburg 1993: 187). This statement implies that a ritual in a museum is always religious theatre. It is a performance and, as such, has different meanings for the audiences and the actors involved. I would argue that the museum curator’s responsibility consists above all in acknowledging this multitude of meanings. He or she should invite trained ritual specialists and make their performance visible and understandable for the audiences. The Museum Rietberg has invited its audiences to participate in drawing mandalas, performing a puja, or processing religious icons around Zurich. In all these occasions we had “real” Hindus performing as well as Christians participating, without any problems. An open debate with external specialists can help. As curators we should not be afraid to ask for expertise or to get support for our questions, which often deal with complex philosophic and hermeneutic dilemmas. An initial exchange between the worlds of academics and museums would ideally be held in the first phase of an exhibition, when the storyline is being developed. The Museum Rietberg will always deal with a multitude of meanings of religion in a complex and changing world. As a public and secular institution, it enjoys high respect, recognition, and credibility. It has normative discursive power and a wide impact on the public opinion, which it defends and even expends. In a world in which information travels fast via the Internet, the Museum Rietberg educates its audiences and works for mutual tolerance. The question is only how to get people curious about religion and art, which continue giving sense to our human existence.