Sign, Method and the Sacred: New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion

✍ Scribed by Jason Cronbach Van Boom, Thomas-Andreas Põder

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 332
• Series: Semiotics of Religion 5; Religion and Reason 64
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

To what extent can semiotics illuminate key problems in religious studies, given the central importance of symbols, language, and other modes of signification in religion and theology? Sign, Method, and the Sacred explores approaches to semiotic methodologies for the study of religion, with an emphasis on their critical and creative reconfigurations. The contributors come from different semiotic specialties, such as biosemiotics, cultural semiotics, and semiotics of religion, as well as cognitive science, ethnography, linguistics, religious studies, theology, and philosophy. Section One consists of chapters focusing on semiotic methodologies for the study of religion and theology. The remaining part of the book focuses on detailed empirical applications while still considering methodological issues. Section Two focuses on semiotics of ritual, both ritual performance and texts about ritual transformation. Section Three looks at the semiotics of visual religious imagery, ranging from colour terms to icons. This book provides readers with a succinct overview of how contemporary semiotics can be useful in understanding a broad array of topics in religious studies.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface
Table of Contents
Introducing new directions in semiotic methodologies for the study of religion
PART I: Theoretical perspectives
Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman
Reveal and re-veil the sacred: Fetishism and fetishes in religious social discourse and practices
Vain repetitions: The role of joint speech in enacting collective subjectivities
Theology, metasemiosis and the ethics of attention
PART II: Applications: Texts and case studies
The semiotics of likeness: Identity, verisimilitude and falsity in Augustine
An overlooked episode in the history of semiotics: The iconoclast controversy and its relevance for the iconic turn
Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley
A Peircean approach to late antique ascent texts
On the Semiotics of Space in the Study of Religions: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Challenges
Religion and the semiotization of space: The case of the Madonna del Rocciamelone
Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis
Form and force of the sacred: A semiotic study of the temptations of Saint Anthony
Authors and editors biographies
Index