James W. Watts is Professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University.

• Chapter 1 Introduction James W Watts Chapter 2 What the Book Arts Can Teach Us About Sacred Texts: The Aesthetic Dimension of Scripture S. Brent Plate Chapter 3 How the Bible Feels: The Christian Bible as Effective and Affective Object Dorina Miller Parmenter Chapter 4 Engaging All the Senses: On Multi-sensory Stimulation in the Process of Making and Inaugurating a Torah Scroll Marianne Schleicher Chapter 5 On Instant Scripture and Proximal Texts: Some Insights into the Sensual Materiality of Texts and their Ritual Roles in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond Christian Frevel Chapter 6 Touching Books, Touching Art: Tactile Dimensions of Sacred Books in the Medieval West David Ganz Chapter 7 Infusions and Fumigations: Literacy Ideologies and Therapeutic Aspects of the Qur'an Katharina Wilkens Chapter 8 Seeing, Touching, Holding and Swallowing Tibetan Buddhist Texts Cathy Cantwell Chapter 9 Neo-Confucian Sensory Readings of Scriptures: the Reading Methods of Chu Hsi and Yi Hwang Yohan Yoo Chapter 10 Scripture's Indexical Touch James W Watts

"....an important contribution to the study of sacred texts . . . on a descriptive, analytical and theoretical level. This collections [sic] of essays will likely appeal to scholars entrusted in religious practices relating to the sensing [sic] sacred texts and how the sensory element relates to the semantic dimension." --Skarpeid, Jon, Anthropos, 115.2020 "Sensing Sacred Texts, edited by James W. Watts, offers a feast for the eyes and the imagination by introducing its readers to a range of ways that sacred texts engage the senses of those who read, hear, venerate, taste, touch, smell, and look at them. . . . the books ten essays examine examples of the sensory dimension of scriptures in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism, and undertake a broader consideration of the sacred status attributed to texts, and to books in particular, in religious and secular cultures alike. Not only do the essays highlight the crucial role played by the material qualities of sacred texts for processes such as identity formation, the establishment of cultural boundaries, and the recruitment of affect, the volumes thirty-eight full-color images will make you want to reach out and touch, taste, or smell the sacred texts in question for yourself." --Joy Palacios, University of Calgary, September 25, 2019