Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Birgit Meyer is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.Terje Stordalen is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Law, Aalborg University, Denmark.

• Introduction: Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and IslamPart I: Reconfiguring the Image Question1. Imagining Solomon’s Temple: Aesthetics of the Non-Representable, Terje Stordalen (University of Oslo, Norway)2. Seeing with the Ear, Recognizing with the Heart: Rethinking the Ontology of the Mimetic Arts in Islam, Wendy Shaw (Free University Berlin, Germany)3. The Hypericon of the Golden Calf, Yvonne Sherwood (University of Kent, UK)4. Idolatry Beyond the Second Commandment: Conflicting Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen, Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University, the Netherlands)Part II: Genealogies of Figuration5: Beyond ‘Image Ban’ and ‘Aniconism’: Reconfiguring Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Religion(s) in a Visual and Material Religion Perspective, Christoph Uehlinger (University of Zürich, Switzerland) 6. Visual Images in Medieval Jewish Culture Before the Age of Art, Kalman P. Bland (Duke University, USA)7: Real Absence: Images of God in Turco-Persian Painting, 1300–1600 CE, Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan, USA)8. Celestial Desires: Figuration and Sensation in Persian Devotional Shiite Mural Paintings, Pedram Khosronejad (Oklahoma State University, USA)Part III: Figurations and Sensations – Lives and Regimes9: Aesthetic Sensations of Mary: The Miraculous Icon of Meryem Ana and the Dynamics of Interreligious Relations in Antakya, Jens Kreinath (Wichitia State University, USA)10: Photographic Practices and the 'Aesthetics of Withdrawal' among Muslims of the East African Coast, Heike Behrend (University of Cologne, Germany)11: Moulded Imaginaries: Icons, Idols, and the Sensory Environments of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Sonja Luehrmann (Simon Fraser University, Canada)Part IV: Desires for the Unseen: Art and Religion 12: From Ponte St. Angelo to the Cathedral of St. Peter: Figuration and Sensation in Bernini's Pilgrimage Path in Rome, Øyvind Norderval (University of Oslo, Norway)13: Figuration and ?Aesthetics of the Sublime': Aspects of their Interplay in Christian Art, Else Marie Bukdahl (University of Aalborg, Denmark)14: Seeing, Hearing, and Narrating Salome. Modernist Sensual Aesthetics and the Role of Narrative Blanks, Ulrike Brunotte (Maastricht University, the Netherlands)15: The Art of Incarnation: Loss and Return of Religion in Houellebecq's Submission, Christiane Kruse (Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Germany)Afterword, The Visual Culture of Revelation, David Morgan (Duke University, USA)BibliographyIndex

Ambitious ... highly interesting.