Definitions
What we typically study in religious studies. They have clear identities, functions, and symbolic meanings. We can categorize them (ritual implements, sacred texts, devotional images) and analyze what they represent.
Objects
_____ is a form of analysis that examines the physical properties, medium, and technique of an object to understand its creation, age, and authenticity. By studying the composition of various physical elements, art historians and conservators can uncover clues about when, where, and how an item was made, and how these material choices influence the items visual characteristics and meaning.
Material Analysis
He came up with a theory for distinguishing the sacred vs. the profane when studying religious life
Mircea Eliade
This space is described by Mircea Eliade as "wholly other" - something fundamentally different from ordinary reality
Not just "special" but ontologically different - a different kind of being
The Sacred
said to be a source of power, reality, meaning - what Eliade calls "saturated with being"
Creates orientation in otherwise chaotic existence
_____ resist analytical control. Brown describes them as hovering "over the threshold between the nameable and unnameable, the figurable and unfigurable." They assert themselves when objects stop working for us—when they break, become obsolete, or exceed our interpretive frameworks.
Things
A three-step process for analyzing and understanding objects, especially material culture, by moving from objective observation to subjective interpretation
it's steps are:
description, deduction, and speculation
The Prown Method
He came up with "Thing Theory" which give us a methodological approach to understanding how "objects" become "things"
Bill Brown
The scholarly study of these physical items to understand a society's beliefs, practices, social structures, and interactions with their environment, using an interdisciplinary approach from fields like anthropology, archaeology, and art history
Material Culture
The focus on the physical properties and reality of objects and their impact on human actions and understanding is refered to as ____?
Materiality
______ is an interdisciplinary field of study focusing on the power of emotions, feelings, and embodied intensities in shaping human experience, social interactions, and cultural phenomena, moving beyond simple conscious thought and rational analysis to examine pre-conscious, non-verbal, and visceral responses that connect individuals and communities. It is rooted in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cultural theory and explores how emotions are not just individual experiences but "public feelings" that bind people together and influence social and political structures.
Affect Theory
He developed a theoretical framework that engages with the social lives of objects, integrating personal influence with existing networks of influence. He is most known for his development of "Actor Network Theory"
Bruno Latour
This space if defined from Latin "pro-fanum" - literally "before the temple" (outside sacred space)
Homogeneous, neutral - all points equivalent
The Profane
Modern, rationalized worldview
Important: Eliade sees this as incomplete human existence
It provides tools for recognizing how we were never separate from things and systems of power in the first place. It’s not an elite grammar of scholarly jargon, it's a toolbox to dismantle things that have been rendered invisible
Theory
____ describes social reality as a dynamic, heterogeneous network of elements—people, objects, technologies, ideas—that form temporary, functional wholes. In material culture studies, these networks also include objects and things
Assemblage
Founder of the field of Religious Studies and known critic of Eliade's definition of the sacred, this theorist defined the sacred/profane through categories of "Locative Vision" and "Utopian Vision"
Jonathan Z. Smith
developed by David Chidester, ____ is the idea that sacred spaces, objects, and ideas are not inherently sacred but are actively produced and negotiated through social processes, intensive interpretation, ritual, and contestation within specific cultural and historical contexts. Rather than an immutable force, the sacred is a dynamic, social phenomenon created by humans to deal with changing realities, cope with frustration, and form group identities.
The Constructed Sacred
___ is the sovereignty to move and exist through the modes of life in which one inhabits. It is what enables our experiences, and also limits them.
Agency
______ is a broad interdisciplinary perspective across the humanities and social sciences that emphasizes the agency and active vitality of matter, both human and non-human, challenging traditional Western dualisms like mind/matter and nature/culture. It is a departure from historical materialism, shifting focus from human practices to matter itself and promoting a post-anthropocentric view that sees bodies and matter as relational, dynamic, and capable of shaping the world.
New Materialism
In his chapter "Planet Hollywood," this theorist defined the sacred through means of construction, and defines religion through frameworks of "doing."
David Chidester
____ is the name for the theoretical movement that emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, challenging traditional Western philosophy's treatment of matter as passive and inert
New Materialism