Isabel Laack
Religion und Musik in Glastonbury
Eine Fallstudie zu gegenwärtigen Formen religiöser Identitätsdiskurse
1. Edition 2011
712 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-54011-4
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Critical Studies in Religion/Religionswissenschaft (CSRRW) -
plus S&H
Book
| PDF eBook | 150,00 € |
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The physical-sensual experience of music is one of the most important ways in which we come to identify with religious traditions, that is to say, how we as individuals become part of collective religious identities. This central hypothesis is developed in the scope of an ethnographic study on Glastonbury.
The basis for this field study is the compilation of the religious currents in that area. The spectrum ranges from Anglicans to Neo-Hindus to Druids to Goddess People. The depiction of the religious environment captures the broad variety, flexibility and affinity of the respective religious identity. Further, using sensography the study describes how bodily sensations and the senses are addressed by the communal religious practices of the different groups. The focus of the study is an extensive analysis of the religious music used.
A theoretical model for explaining the phenomena attempts to understand the role music plays in the local collective processes of identity formation. Aspects such as the effectiveness of music, common experiences of playing music, the construction of collective autobiographies from religious history and esthetic-musical identity states are discussed, and the newest ethnological, musicological and religious approaches to ritual theory are related to each other. For the first time this field, which combines music and religion as part of the discipline of religious esthetics, is studied from a theological perspective.
