Religion as aestheticizing practice

Organizer: Pål Repstad, University of Agder, Norway  (Pal.Repstad@uia.no)

There seems to be an increasing interest in culture, art and aestheticizing practices in general in the field of religion, both inside and outside religious institutions, while the interest in dogma and theology seems to be more modest than before. Furthermore, the aestheticizing practices express themselves differently in different cultures, and the diffrences are probably partly class-based. An increased attention to dimensions of emotions, sensibility and experiences vis-a-vis the cognitive, dogmatic and theological can be seen as a way of handling increased religious pluralism. This session welcomes empirical and theoretical contributions along these lines.