Image, Word, Music: an Art
Debate on Religious Mediation
A Symposium
at the Sainsbury Research Unit
for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
6
– 7 Nov 2009
A symposium convened by Dr Aristóteles Barcelos Neto, of the Sainsbury Research Unit.
Discussant: Dr Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics and Political Science
The aim of this symposium was to create a dialogue at the crossroads of art and religion. The last major contribution on mediation (Latour & Weibel, 2002) was mainly focused on the properties of images. It would be an interesting challenge to broaden this debate by including music, poetry, text and body art. The symposium focused on topics such as the immanence of image and objects, the denial of religious mediation, electronic music in indigenous churches, sacrifice, spirit possession in Evangelical cults, iconoclasm and so forth. The explosion of the "religions of the Word" in Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific brings new challenges to the historic and ethnographic understanding of what an image is and what it means when native peoples decide to abandon or to hide them.
Programme
Day 1 – Friday 6 November
Elizabeth Fry building, room 01.02
| 13:00 | Registration and welcome |
| 14:00 | Presentation |
| 14:10 | Prof John Mack, University of East Anglia |
| 14:55 | Prof Sandy Heslop, University of East Anglia |
| 15:40 | Coffee break at Elizabeth Fry building entrance hall |
| 16:10 | Dr Margit Thøfner, University of East Anglia |
| 16:55 | Dr Suzel Reily, Queen's University Belfast |
| 17:40 | Debate lead by Dr Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics and Political Science |
| 18:30 | Drinks reception at the School of World Art Studies and Museology |
| 19:30 | Dinner at Vista, University Plain |
Day 2 – Saturday 7 November
Elizabeth Fry building, room 01.02
| 09:20 | Prof Joel Robbins, University of Califonia, San Diego Keeping God's Distance: Sacrifice, Possession, and the Problem of Religious Mediation |
| 10:05 | Dr Aristoteles Barcelos Neto, University of East Anglia ‘What is religion? It is to adore images’: re-inventing idolatry as alterity process in Catholic Peru |
| 10:50 | Coffee break at Elizabeth Fry building entrance hall |
| 11:20 | Prof Beth Conklin, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Sing our body electric: electronic church music as experimental space for emerging indigenous empowerment in Latin America |
| 12:05 | Debate lead by Dr Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics and Political Science |
| 13:00 | Lunch at the School of World Art Studies and Museology |