Spirituality and Sensuality: Why Objects Matter for Religious Life. A presentation by Brent Plate

El Instituto Internacional y el Programa de la Universidad de Stanford en Madrid tienen el gusto de invitarles a la charla del Profesor Brent Plate:

Spirituality and Sensuality:Why Objects Matter for Religious Life

Miércoles  28 de junio a las 19h.

La charla tendrá lugar en la sala del jardín de la Biblioteca y será en inglés sin traducción

Professor Brent Plate takes a fresh and much-needed approach to a vital area of human culture, religion. He suggests that religious life and practice must be understood in the first instance as deriving from basic human experiences, and he asks us to put aside questions of belief and abstract ideas. Instead, beginning with the incomplete human body, he guides our focus to five ordinary types of objects—stones, incense, drums, crosses, and bread—with which we connect in our pursuit of religious meaning and fulfillment.

His talk is based on his recent book, A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects, which is a celebration of the materiality of religious life. Plate moves our understanding of religion away from the current obsessions with God, fundamentalism, and science—and toward the rich depths of this world, this body, these things. Religion, it turns out, has as much to do with our bodies as our beliefs. Maybe more.

Brent Plate is a writer, editor, public, speaker, and currently visiting associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. He is author/editor of twelve books, including Religion and Film; Blasphemy: Art that Offends; and Religion, Art, and Visual Culture. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, and serves on several advisory boards, including the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, NY. More information can be found at his website: www.sbrentplate.net

See here for information about A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects

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