Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part one Religion and religious studies: the irony of inheritance
- Part two Major theoretical problems
- Part three Methodological variations
- 12 Buddhism and violence
- 13 Practicing religions
- 14 The look of the sacred
- 15 Reforming culture: law and religion today
- 16 Sexing religion
- 17 Constituting ethical subjectivities
- 18 Neo-Pentecostalism and globalization
- 19 Religious criticism, secular critique, and the “critical study of religion”: lessons from the study of Islam
- Index
14 - The look of the sacred
from Part three - Methodological variations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part one Religion and religious studies: the irony of inheritance
- Part two Major theoretical problems
- Part three Methodological variations
- 12 Buddhism and violence
- 13 Practicing religions
- 14 The look of the sacred
- 15 Reforming culture: law and religion today
- 16 Sexing religion
- 17 Constituting ethical subjectivities
- 18 Neo-Pentecostalism and globalization
- 19 Religious criticism, secular critique, and the “critical study of religion”: lessons from the study of Islam
- Index
Summary
Whatever else it means, to see or be seen is to enter into a relationship, even if doing so involves practices as different as ignoring those who glare at us, returning the gaze of a lover, or cherishing the photograph of a lost family member. Different as they are, each of these behaviors is an example of the many kinds of relatedness that constitute interaction with images. I say “interaction” because it becomes clear upon inspection that a viewer's action toward objects, images, or people is often far more than unilateral. Each looks back; sometimes they even see us before we see them. Of special interest here is how images of the living and the dead, of gods, or of mythic heroes connect to the viewer's body. Seeing bridges the gap separating seer and seen, connecting the two in some way. Representation vanishes in the way that a tool in one's hand fades from consciousness as a sign in the midst of using it. Before use, the tool only signifies what it might actually do. In use, the tool ceases to be separate from the body and becomes instead a physical extension of it. Likewise, when they join viewers to those they love, fear, or hate, images are organic projections of the eyes, material forms of beholding. It is this tangible look, the look of the sacred, that reveals the role of the body in vision, and that will be the subject of this chapter.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies , pp. 296 - 318Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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