Aesthetics of Religion

• Applicant: Dr. Katharina Wilkens
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270644272

The aesthetics of religion network will pioneer a well-defined theoretical approach in comparative per-spective. Based on solid groundwork of previous collaboration on the key concepts museality and imagination we will reach out to integrate new members and urgent topics. A challenge not be under-estimated will be to bridge the gap between cognitive and cultural approaches to religion. The network will extend its paradigmatic work and will develop an epistemology and methodology of aesthetics. In this endeavour we will be able to include newly arising fields such as semiotics and cognitive narratol-ogy due to the historically and empirically wide-ranging specializations of the (new) group members.Recent years have seen many trends shifting towards sensory categories as main heuristics of research: spatiality, visuality, embodiment or most recently, material culture. In its long history of theoretic reflection, aesthetics of religion has accounted for culturally formed sensorial patterns of perception as well as styles, media formats and elaborated strategies of beauty - including modern aesthetisation of lifestyle in consumer culture. In its debates axioms have been discovered, terms have been clarified and theories of perception have been integrated. Thus, aesthetics of religion appears as the most suitable approach to critically evaluate categories and methods from various disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds and to place them in relation to one another.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Participating Person: Professorin Dr. Anne Koch