Walter Benjamin, Religion and Aesthetics; Rethinking Religion through the Arts
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics is an innovative attempt to reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Brent Plate deftly sifts through Benjamin's voluminous writings showing how his concepts of art, allegory, and experience undo traditional religious concepts such as myth, symbol, memory, narrative, creation, and redemption. Recasting religion as religious practice, as process and movement, Plate locates a Benjaminian materialist aesthetics, what the author calls an "allegorical aesthetics," in order to uncover sources and establish a new locus for the study of religion.
Placing the concept of an allegorical aesthetics into practice, Plate offers examinations of aesthetic productions such as Daniel Libeskind's architecture and Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades alongside religious developments such as the Hindu Bhakti movement and Jewish Kabbalistic thought.
Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics will be necessary reading for those interested in religion and the arts, aesthetics, and material culture.
About the Author
S. Brent Plate is Assistant Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University has published widely on religion and visual culture, film, and aesthetics. His edited collections include the forthcoming Religion and World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making (2003) and Religion, Art, and Visual Culture: A Cross-Cultural Reader (2002).
Walter Benjamin, Religion and Aesthetics; Rethinking Religion through the Arts,S. Brent Plate,Routledge,0415969921,1892-1940,Aesthetics,Arts and religion,Benjamin, Walter,,Philosophy,Religion,Religious,Religious aspects,Religion & Beliefs,Theory of art
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