The International Institute and the Stanford University Program in Madrid are pleased to invite you to Professor Brent Plate's talk:
Spirituality and Sensuality:Why Objects Matter for Religious Life
Wednesday, June 28 at 19:XNUMX p.m.
The talk will take place in the garden room of the Library and will be in English without translation
Professor Brent Plate takes a fresh and much-needed approach to a vital area of human culture, religion. He suggests that religious life and practice must be understood in the first instance as deriving from basic human experiences, and he asks us to put aside questions of belief and abstract ideas. Instead, beginning with the incomplete human body, he guides our focus to five ordinary types of objects—stones, incense, drums, crosses, and bread—with which we connect in our pursuit of religious meaning and fulfillment.
His talk is based on his recent book, A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects, which is a celebration of the materiality of religious life. Plate moves our understanding of religion away from the current obsessions with God, fundamentalism, and science—and toward the rich depths of this world, this bodysuit, These things. Religion, it turns out, has as much to do with our bodies as our beliefs. Maybe more.
brent plate is a writer, editor, public, speaker, and currently visiting associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. He is author/editor of twelve books, including Religion and film; Blasphemy: Art that Offends, And Religion, Art, and Visual Culture. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, and serves on several advisory boards, including the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, NY. More information can be found at his website about him: www.sbrentplate.net
Ssee here for information about A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects
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