Aesthetic Formations: Media, Religion, and the Senses

The central theme of this volume is the incorporation of newly accessible mass media into practices of religious mediation in a variety of settings, including Pentecostal-charismatic churches and Islamic movements, and the use of religious forms and images in the sphere of radio and cinema. Based on a long-term cooperation, the contributors examine the role of religion and media in the emergence and sustenance of new ‘aesthetic formations’ that appeal to the body and the senses, and generate new styles of binding and moods of belonging in our time.

Birgit Meyer is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at VU University Amsterdam. She is the author of Translating the Devil. Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana (1999), and co-editor of Globalization and Identity (with Peter Geschiere, 1999), Magic and Modernity (with Peter Pels) and Religion, Media and the Public Sphere (with Annelies Moors). She is also co-editor of Material Religion.