The Religious Body Imagined

This edited volume examines the ways in which the human body has been imagined, imaged, and discursively produced in particular places, times, and religious traditions. It brings together representative papers from most of the world’s major traditions and geo-historical locations, and explores the religious body’s various functions, roles, and transformative effects through a range of disciplinary and theoretical lenses (e.g. visual culture, literary, performance and cultural studies, ethnography, space / place, ritual, postcolonial theory and social justice as it pertains to embodiment). Most significantly, it is organized according to novel, thought-provoking thematic foci that advance the field and that can be generative for classroom use. Specifically, it includes twelve chapters organized into sections on the Gendered Body, LGBTQ Bodies, Migrating Bodies, Host Bodies, Sensational Bodies, and National Bodies. As a result, this volume contributes new and original research as well as theoretical insights that can substantially help to expand our understanding of the interdisciplinary field of religion and body in general.