Transfers of Sacredness and the Trifunctional Imagery

Annals of Tourism Research, 2002

Cambridge University Press 2001 £45.00 $74.95 (h) £16.95 $24.95 (p) 384 pp. 56 mono illus isbn 0-521-58145-1 (h) 0-521-79441-2 (p)

2015

Seeing the Sacred is a multidisciplinary arts project exploring the purposes of sacred art and its relationship with community identity. The project highlights three common purposes of sacred art: to represent a worldview, to express identities as members of a community, and to connect with something bigger than ourselves. This Capstone Experience/Thesis Project developed through an intersection of three primary interests: visual art, community engagement, and religious studies. This project includes an overview of the CE/T's origins and evolution, a written analysis of research goals and experiences, a review of relevant literature, a series of related artwork, and a collaborative community art project. The analysis details the development of those research interests, objectives, and questions, and the completion of the final project.

Dimitrios Yatromanolakis, ed., An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies (Institut du Livre, Athens), 2009

The Sacred Heart Cathedral Bendigo, 2023

A discussion of the universality of sacred symbolism with particular reference to the Gothic Cathedral. Taken from a larger study of the Sacred Heart Cathedral of Bendigo, Australia.

Reflections on the Sacred , 2021

Reflections on the Sacred - a comparative phenomenological religious studies seminar, at Engelsberg November 2021. The subject of special interest to the seminar is the sacred and the meaning it carries in various cultures and settings for the individual. How is meaning and the purpose of life created and perceived from a comparative perspective in different cultures? What is perceived as sacred and holy in the sense Rudolf Otto conceived religion as das ganz andere in present day? How do different ontologies, basic assumptions about the human existence, compare and influence the perception of the sacred and give rise to meaning in different cultures and cultural settings? Max Weber claimed that with the entzauberung der Welt, the influence of religious ideas did not disappear. His thesis implies that religion is a kind of matrix that can transform itself in an explicitly secular, but quasi- religious fashion. To what extent can it be said that modern societies and ideologies carry with them essentially religious/spiritual forms and structures and therefore purport basic assumptions about reality? How do we distinguish between the truly secular and the sacred in today’s world? Capitalism, socialism, and the green ecological movements are in this sense obvious objects of study were remnants of thought-patterns from a Christian eschatology seems to echo from notions of paradise lost to apocalyptic ideas about the end of the world. The conference is organised in order to reappraise and revitalise the discipline of History of Religions and also make it more relevant for understanding our contemporary society.

2018

The aim of the volume is a comparative study of non-European pilgrimages under different historical conditions and changing power relations. Historic transformations but also continuities in organization, bodily and spiritual experience, as well as individual and collective motives are discussed. Written by an interdisciplinary group of authors, their various disciplinary perspectives offer insight into the differences in methods, theoretical reflections and the use and meanings of objects in ritual performances. The construction of sacred spaces as landscapes of imagination reflects a wide range of meaning in regard of the growing complexity and social dynamism in times of postmodernity. Keywords: Interdisciplinary approach; non-European pilgrimages; transformation and continuity; theories of pilgrimage studies Ziel des Bandes ist eine vergleichende Analyse außereuropäischer Pilgerreisen unter verschiedenen historischen Bedingungen und Machtverhältnissen. Untersucht werden historische Transformationsprozesse, aber auch Kontinuitäten bezüglich der Organisation, der körperlichen und spirituellen Erfahrungen sowie der individuellen und kollektiven Motive der Pilger. Die interdisziplinäre Zusammensetzung der Autoren vermittelt Einblicke in unterschiedliche Methoden, theoretische Reflektionen sowie den Gebrauch und die Bedeutung von Objekten in rituellen Performances. Die Konstruktion von heiligen Orten als Landschaften der Imagination reflektiert eine große Vielfalt an Bedeutungen in Bezug auf die komplexen und dynamischen Prozesse im Zeitalter der Postmoderne.

This event, dedicated to the memory of Philip Sherrard, on the occasion of the twenty years from his death, will focus on various aspects of the always interesting topic of the sacred in life and art. The workshop tackles questions related to the notion of the sacred in the 21 st century, in life and art. The Sacred here is approached in the context of the many layers of the concept of the mystery, such as what we cannot fully understand, what is beyond us, the perception of the divine in religious discourse, the mystery of artistic creation, and the challenge of scientific research. Our event is intended as an occasion for presentation of work in progress, an exchange of ideas and perspectives as well as an opportunity for intercultural, intergenerational and interdisciplinary dialogue. We are becoming increasingly aware that the forms of our life and art — of our modern civilization generally — have over the last few centuries been characterized by the progressive loss of precisely that sense which gives virtually all other civilizations and cultures of the world their undying luster and significance: the sense of the sacred. In fact, the concept of a completely profane world — of a cosmos wholly desacralized — is a fairly recent invention of the western mind, and only now are we beginning to realize the appalling consequences of trying to order and mould our social, personal and creative life in obedience to its dictates. It is not even too much to say that we are also beginning to realize that unless we can reinstate the sense of the sacred at the heart of all our activities there can be no hope of avoiding the cosmic catastrophe for which we are heading.

Body and Religion

Imagery, Ritual, and Birth: Ontology Between the Sacred and the Secular by A. Hennessey, foreword by R. E. Davis Floyd (2019) Lanham: Lexington Books, xxi + 195pp., 35 figures

Religions , 2019

You enter a church-let us say it is a traditional Orthodox Church setting-to attend a church service. Immediately, you find yourself immersed in a profoundly aesthetic environment, which evokes a variety of rich sensory experiences. You smell incense, the clouds of which fill the space of the church, infused alongside the scent of the burning wax from the candles. You listen to the chanting. You see richly decorated priestly vestments, in white, red, green, gold visually resonating with the colorful paintings-icons-on the iconostasis and on the walls. Toward the end of the service, if you are a believer and an active member of the Church, you taste the Eucharist-you eat the bread and wine-the flesh and blood of Christ.

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 2014

Things are not only what they are; they constantly pass beyond themselves, and give more than they have.-Jacques Maritain At the center of the Christian world, at least according to most medieval mappa mundi, is the cross. In these images, X marks the spot, the axis that orients the world. By the later Middle Ages in Europe, the cross was the sacred object par excellence: it circulated as relics and representations, was performed in blessings, extolled in poems and sermons, evoked in prayers of healing and protection, and venerated in ceremonies such as creeping to the cross on Good Friday. 1 An instrument of torture turned sign of redemption, medieval explanations of its special status reflect upon how its very ordinary materiality was imbued with and transformed by sacred power, an issue at the center of this special issue. A passage from "The Exaltation of the Cross" in William Caxton's fifteenth-century printing of the Golden Legend opens by describing the process that transformed a "tre of fylthe" into a sacred object: Þe tree of the crosse was a tre of fylthe / for þe crosses were made of vile trees: and of trees without fruyt: for all that was planted on the mount of caluarie bare no frute. It was a fowl place / for it was the place of þe torment of theuis: It was derk for it was in a derke place and wythout bewté / It was the tree of deth / for men weren put there to deth. It was also the tree of stenche / for it was planted amonge the caroynes / and after the passion the crosse was moche enhaunced / for the vylté was transported in to pre

Symmetry: Culture and Science, 2019

Can the history of sacred architecture be summarized in universal principles? They would need to be ones to which the builders of early Christian basilicas, Gothic cathedrals, and baroque chapels could accede. In previous ages, these principles were tacitly understood and did not need to be articulated. In this paper, I propose five universal principles that apply to sacred architecture of all times, all places, and all styles, with examples from the great buildings of history and my own creative work. I also propose that while fundamental to the revival of sacred architecture, they are not a formula, and must still be applied by a talented architect.

Goat on the Mountain, Moon in the Sky, Fish in the Water, 2023

Reflections on Rezzan Gümgüm's exhibition entitled Goat on the Mountain, Moon in the Sky, Fish in the Water hosted by Depo İstanbul

“Figures and Forms of Ultimacy: Manifestation and Proclamation as Paradigms of the Sacred” , 2011