Massimo Leone - Mediation and Immediacy: A Key Issue for the Semiotics of Religion

Religion and Reason

Theory in the Study of Religion

Edited by

Volume

Semiotics of Religion

Edited by

Volume

ISBN 9783110690323

e-ISBN (PDF) 9783110690347

e-ISBN (EPUB) 9783110690354

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

This volume is the fruit of several years cooperation between the three editors. We wish to thank the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and its Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) for supporting Jenny Ponzo as a LMU Research Fellow during 20142016; the CAS for hosting Massimo Leone as a visiting fellow in July 2015; the University of Turin and CIRCe (Interdepartmental Center of Research on Communication at the University of Turin) for hosting both Jenny Ponzo and Robert Yelle (in 2017) as visiting scholars, and finally the European Research Council (ERC), which supported Jenny Ponzos more recent research. The conference out of which this volume grew was held at the University of Turin, 810 June 2016 with support from LMUs CAS and Interfaculty Program in Religious Studies. We would like to thank all of the participants at that conference, as well as those who contributed to the work of organization, including Simona Stano, Gabriele Marino, Bruno Surace, Vincenzo Idone Cassone, and Mareile Vaupel. Wenzel Braunfels contributed to copy editing and checking the references. Finally, we would like to thank our two editors at De Gruyter: Alissa Jones Nelson, who helped to launch the Semiotics of Religion series, and Sophie Wagenhofer, who has steered this project toward completion. This volume is dedicated to the memory of Michael Silverstein (19452020), who gave a keynote lecture at the 2016 conference. Michael was one of the most brilliant lights in contemporary semiotics, and a dear colleague and teacher. He will be sorely missed.

. Cupid Trademark (left) and Angel Trademark (right).

. Zanobi Strozzi, Conversion of St. Augustine, ca. 1450, Firenze, Museo San Marco (f. 1r).

. Raffaello, Sistine Madonna, 15131514, Dresden, Gemldegalerie Alte Meister.

. Donatello, Anunciation (detail), ca. 1435, Florence, Basilica di Santa Croce.

.Garland Sarcophagus, 150180, Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum.

.Angel as Nike, 3rd century, Aquileia, Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta.

.Adoration of Magi, ca. 740, Cividale di Friuli, Museo Cristiano.

.Angel Rounds the Sky (Breviary of Love), 12th century, London, National Library (Royal 19 C. 1, f 34v).

. Frederic Watts, All Pervading, 18871890, Compton, Watts Gallery.

. Andrei Rublev, Holy Trinity, 14081425, Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery.

. Hildegard von Bingen, The First Vision (from Scivias), 1153.

. The interfolding of sense-perception, body and psyche by religious meaning.

. The nine relations between the sign S, the object O, and the interpretant I.

. The OBE of Mechthild of Magdeburg as a semiotic system in a certain synchronous state.

. Mechthilds OBE as a religious semiotic system in a certain synchronous state.

. Hypothetical continuum from (left) conversational dialogue, through (middle) liturgy, to (right) unison speech.

. Left: Sense-making: The relation of a dynamically individuated self-sustaining entity with its environment. Right: Participatory sense-making.

. Religious prerequisites for the construction of the other as an enemy.

. The three social functions of Sinhalese Buddhism.

. Religious demographics in Sri Lanka.

. Banning sharia and halal in the web page of BBS.

. The power of the index finger.

. Heads of cows taken by BBS militants who stormed against halal butchers (Dematagoda, March 1, 2013).

. Gabriel Metsu, Jesus defends the adulterous woman, 1653. 134 x 165 cm. Oil on canvas. Paris: Louvre.

. Gabriel Metsu, Jesus defends the adulterous woman, 1653. Detail. 134 x 165 cm. Oil on canvas. Paris: Louvre.

. Pietro della Vecchia, Christ and the adulterous woman, third quarter of the 17th century. 126 x 172 cm. Oil on canvas. Paris: Louvre.

. Pietro della Vecchia, Christ and the adulterous woman, third quarter of the 17th century. 151 x 206 cm. Oil on canvas. London: sold at Christies auction, 2000.

. Pietro della Vecchia, Christ and the adulterous woman, third quarter of the 17th century. 33 x 45 cm. Oil on canvas. Rome: A. Sabatello (photograph from the Federico Zeri archives).

. Biasio Ugolino. Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, 34 vols. Venice: Apud Joannem Gabrielem Herthz, et Sebastianum Coletti, 174469.

. Biasio Ugolino. Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, 15: 434.

. Valentin de Boulogne, Jesus and the adulterous woman, 1620. 167.6 x 219.7 cm. Oil on canvas. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum.

. Jan Vermeer, Girl With A Red Hat, 1665.

.Wisdom Dominates the Stars, 1635.

. Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1793.

. Mark Rothko, Four Darks in Red, 1958.

. Joshua Oppenheimer (director), The Look of Silence, 2014.

. Joshua Oppenheimer (director), The Look of Silence, 2014.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 757314).

Note: For formal purposes, please consider section 1 of this Introduction as authored by Massimo Leone, section 1.1 as authored by Robert Yelle, and sections 1.2 and 2 as authored by Jenny Ponzo.

The field of semiotics of religion is wide and varied. It is however possible to distinguish within it three different types of studies. The first two types were recognized already by ]). The second type produces more specific and systematic elaborations. Studies belonging to this second type aim at interpreting the anthropology and the sociology of religion, as well as theological thought, through a semiotic theory. Some of these studies were inspired by Charles Sanders Peirce, while others were inspired by the French school, which looks back to key figures such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Algirdas Greimas, and Paul Ricoeur. Exemplars of this type of study are Louis Panier, Louis Marin, and Michel de Certeau.

The third type, which contains the major number of works, includes all the studies that analyze corpora of texts, rituals, and other signs belonging to a certain religious culture with a semiotic method. Even though it is not the intention of these studies to provide a semiotic interpretation of religion, they influence or provide an empirical ground for the elaboration of the theories of the second type. Centers developing this line of research can be found in France, in Germany, in Italy, and in the U.S. The contributions contained in this volume can be placed mainly in this third type.