Religion, Spirituality and Secularism

7 Religion, Spiritua Religion, Spirituality and Secularism rina arya 1. The Visual and Material Culture of Religion The 1990s saw an increase in scholarship that recognized visual and other sensory ways of experiencing religion through images and objects, especially in the pioneering work of scholars such as David Morgan and S. Brent Plate. The development of this field has meant the growth of approaches, methods and ways of engaging with a sensory understanding of the religious. Seeing Religion: Toward a Visual Sociology of Religion, edited by Roman R. Williams, is an excellent contribution to this subject area and, in particular, to the field of visual sociology. Until recently visual methods have been not been taken seriously within sociology and, whilst the visual may have been employed, it was only in an illustrative capacity. Since the emergence of visual sociology in the last two decades, as facilitated by organizations such as the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), there has been a shift to interrogate the visual as a method to examine the many ways it contributes to sociological research. This shift is detailed in the editor’s introduction to this book. The roots of the crossover between the sociological and the visual are deep; indeed, as Williams reminds us, none other than the father of sociology Émile Durkheim’s ethnographic and theoretical research for the Elementary Forms of Religious Life were shaped by photographs (p. 2). The eleven chapters in this collection, flanked by an introductory and summary chapter, show how research in the field has been informed and shaped by the visual. This takes many forms, both in terms of which media we are looking at—from photographs to digital media—to how the visual operates as a way of The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, ß The English Association (2016) All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected] doi:10.1093/ywcct/mbw007 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 This chapter responds to a range of contemporary debates in the fields of religion, spirituality and secularism in books published in 2015. The chapter is divided into three sections: 1. The Visual and Material Culture of Religion; 2. Secularism and the Post-Secular; 3. Georges Bataille and the Sacred. 2 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 collecting, reflecting, constructing and disseminating data and ideas. All contributors postulate the essentiality of the visual in their enquiries and we learn how the presence of everyday signs and symbols, from street signs to dress, reflects the visibility of religion in public spaces. A method that crops up in a number of contributions (Chapters Five and Six) is photo elicitation, which involves the use of photographs as an aid to discussion (and not simply elicitation) in interview discussions. Generated by the researcher, the participant or neither in its capacity as a found image, the photograph functions to integrate the participant into the research and challenges the status quo of the research dynamic. Instead of being face-to-face, as is the case in a typical interview, the researcher and participant are shoulder-to-shoulder and this engenders a different working relationship and validation of a different kind (p. 195). Chapters Four and Five tackle attitudes to Islam in the city. Whilst Chapter Four looks at a global range of multicultural cities, Chapter Five focuses only on the multiethnic city of Grønland in Norway. The authors of Chapter Four, Jerome Krase and Timothy Shortell, talk about how the ‘visibility of Islam’ is not only contentious but is ‘thoroughly politicized’ (p. 62). They are referring to the display of material symbols (signs, clothing, etc.) of Islam and take photographs of mosques in a number of cities including London, Berlin, and Cape Town, to show how ‘[t]he current rise in anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiments around the world is a somber reminder of the seriousness of visibility conflicts’ (p. 80). The authors of Chapter Five, Anders Vassenden and Mette Andersson, develop a similar argument but their scope is different. They look at the responses of young Norwegians to two photographs of religious symbols hanging in separate car windows. One is a hanging geometric form which represents the ninety-nine names of Allah, and the other is a Cross (see pp. 86–7). The findings showed that while non-Muslim subjects tended to describe the Islamic object as a symbol displaying one’s faith, Muslims identified it as something like a good luck charm which in this case secured safe car journeys (p. 96). One of the key overall findings was that in a secular country like Norway—and even in a multicultural inner-city area—material displays of religion are highly unusual and are not regarded as neutral. Chapter Six takes a different approach to visuality. By using Erving Goffman’s studies of the presentation of the self, Philip Richter looks at the self-management styles of different church group leaders as they negotiate the boundaries between public office and private space (in the vestry or sacristy). We learn that it is not simply the ritual objects that are on show but the leaders themselves who have to perform. Taken in the abstract the Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 3 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 transition between the private and public reflects the crux of the book, for it is through the visual that religion is made visible and by consequence brought out of invisibility. This takes a poignant turn in Chapters Eight to Ten as we look at Holocaust memorialization and domestic violence. Seeing Religion not only recognizes the potential of visual research techniques for the study of religion (p. xviii), which Williams describes as ‘the visual turn’, but also contributes to the contemporary understanding of religion as a visual and material practice and is an essential addition to the steady increase in scholarship on visual sociology. The book also centralizes the epistemological problem of the visual, as we see that bringing something into the visual plane can be a way of marking something out as being different as well as being the source of interrogation and provocation. The visual as material practice is integral to the objective of the next book in the review, Key Terms in Material Religion, edited by S. Brent Plate. Plate was co-founder of the journal Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, and an issue in 2011 featured nineteen entries on ‘Key Words’ that were central to the discipline. This book is an expansion of that journal issue in that it presents thirty-seven key terms in short pieces, all of which reflect the material study of religion. As Plate argues in his introduction (pp. 3–4), the study of religion used to predominantly be about philosophical and intellectual questions that concerned the mind. Since the late twentieth century there has been a move towards exploring lived religion and that means recognizing the materiality of religion, and how it manifests itself in the body, ritual, performance and through other means. Lived religion gives a holistic framework for understanding how religion imprints in people’s lives in various ways. In the introduction Plate provides a useful but nonexhaustive definition of ‘material religion’ showing how it involves sense experience and the ‘structures of tradition’ and experience. What follows are short contributions, arranged alphabetically from ‘Aesthetics’ to ‘Words’, where the structure was ‘designed to be modular and usable along with other texts and case studies’ (p. xvi). Each piece operates as a springboard for reflection on the subject or theme. Many of the contributions involve the exploration of personal narratives and present fresh perspectives. Aside from the expected contributions on themes such as ‘Belief’, ‘Prayer’ and ‘Ritual’, there are new keywords that expand the discourse of material religion in different directions. One new thread is through the cluster of terms that focus on sense perception, such as ‘Sensation’, ‘Smell’, ‘Taste’ and ‘Touch’. This can be viewed as a deliberate attempt to move beyond the visual lens to capture the all-embracing and embodied sensory experience of religion. Another development, which is also 4 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 methodological, is through the exploration of New Media forms and themes such as ‘Digital’, ‘Screen’, ‘Sound’ and ‘Technology’. The development of the impact of digital media on the study of religion furthers the need to develop terminology and concepts in the growing field of Digital Religion. The clustering of themes around coherent subject areas might have been fruitful, and indeed led to a different type of book, but the choice to enlist the pieces as standalone contributions has its benefits in terms of the wider applicability of the text and the flexibility of its use alongside other texts. As the field of religious studies grows and transforms, it is imperative that terminology and concepts in the field are revisited and updated. The conceptualization of technology also expresses the importance of seeing technology and other tools not merely instrumentally but as ways that can shape religious understanding. One of the objectives of the book is to convey the prevalence of these key terms in the study of research, which often involves translating or unpacking concepts across different cultural traditions. For instance, on the topic of ‘Aesthetics’ Inken Prohl shows how the ideals espoused in Western aesthetic traditions, such as the Hegelian view, are also found in the seeking of ‘the ‘‘art of Zen’’ as a path to the ultimate truth’ (p. 11). Ivan Gaskell’s illuminating contribution on ‘Display’ sets up a contrast between three sites of display in Trafalgar Square, London, as experienced in late June 2009 (pp. 63–9), where each involves religious artefacts that are presented in a wide variety of ways, thereby eliciting different responses (p. 68). The first case study is of the National Gallery whose collection includes European devotional images which demand a certain kind of interaction. Heading out of the National Gallery into Trafalgar Square, which the author did on the afternoon of 28 June 2009, he encountered a display of a different and more exuberant kind (see p. 66). It was the ritual celebration of Rath Ya (Chariot Festival) which marked a Hindu tradition organized by branches of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. During this ritual food is blessed and shared with worshippers. The festival invites a greater sense of participation than the viewing of the art works at the National Gallery, and following the relative solemnity of viewing European masterpieces one is plunged into a flurry of activity. The final case study invites meditation on Shirazeh Houshiary’s commissioned window for the Anglican church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, which is also in the vicinity. Made of irregularly spaced horizontal and vertical bars, the central space of the window is created through warping, generating the effect of ‘a rippling cross’ (p. 68). Gaskell states that ‘[t]he window prompts viewers whose terms of reference and symbolic needs vary to find their own particular concerns represented, Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 5 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 whether overtly Christian, more generally spiritual, or purely aesthetic’ (p. 68). When thinking about religion as a lived material practice, the boundaries between sacred and secular spaces become blurred. This idea is explored explicitly in the piece ‘Display’, and in others such as David Chichester’s superb study of the ‘Sacred’ (pp. 179–85), but it is also a theme which underpins the entire book. Likewise, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces: Exhibiting Asian Religions in Museums, edited by Bruce Sullivan, addresses this theme of the boundaries between the sacred and the secular. Consisting of eleven articles, the book documents the issues and considerations of exhibiting religious objects from selected South Asian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism) in secular spaces in countries in which these religious groups are in a minority (such as the United States). Sullivan outlines some of the main concerns in his rich introduction (pp. 1–6). A predominant theme is the transformations which the objects undergo when moved from their original locations, which are invariably religious (often within temples, shrines, monasteries, etc.), to secular environments—often the museum environment. Furthermore, the different and often conflicting priorities of the audiences—religious communities, scholars and museum professionals— need to be taken into account when thinking about the various identities of the object in question. Sullivan asks, how ‘are these objects to be understood, described, exhibited and handled now that they are in museums?’ (p. 2). A related issue is ‘what might constitute an appropriate or even ‘‘authentic’’ experience of religiously significant objects in the context of a museum’ (p. 4). Richard H. Davis, author of Chapter One, sets out many of the main ideas of the book by tracking what is described as the journey of the object and looking at the transformations undergone in the process that change how the object is displayed and interpreted. The two objects in question, the Nataraja and the Somaskanda, are bronzes from Sivapuram, a small village in Southern India. Davis charts their journey over the course of ten centuries which involve movements generating conflicting priorities about the placement of the objects. On the one hand villagers and Indian religious communities believed that the rightful place for the objects is the temple, while other groups are interested to promote the global heritage of the objects, which would inevitably mean a relocation of the objects outside their natural setting (p. 10). These two strands are aligned with two main developments in the mid-twentieth century which Davis discusses (p. 15)—the decolonization and nationalism of Indian art—which have led to the increased constraints on the preservation of cultural heritage. The other driver is the 6 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 internationalization of art, which has resulted in the expansion of global art in urban institutions and a ‘taxonomic shift’ where the works can be seen for their aesthetic quality. In his chapter Bruce Sullivan looks at the place of yoga in the museum setting. Yoga has attracted wide groups of people in Europe and Northern America, some of whom use it to maintain wellbeing whilst others adhere to its religious aspects too. In bringing it within the space of the museum we are able to experience its aestheticism as well as social benefits. The exhibition Yoga: the Art of Transformation, held in 2013–14 in the Sackler Gallery in Washington, explores the key goals of yoga in different religious traditions and the way it transforms body and consciousness. There are also a number of museums which offer yoga. Sullivan conducts interviews with museum staff, yoga instructors and participants to investigate its appeal (p. 35) and argues that part of the reason why yoga features in so many museum programmes is that it ‘complements or reinforces the appreciation of objects in museums’ (p. 44). There are objections to this view, where one could argue that both yoga and the appreciation of artworks often involve diametrically different approaches and sensibilities, with the former embracing ‘inward focus’ whilst the latter has an ‘outward focus’ (p. 45). Anne Murphy looks at ‘Sikh Museuming’, which is a welcome addition to the field, given the relative marginalization of Sikhism in museum contexts as compared with Hinduism. Through examination of the cultural contexts of Sikhs in the UK, USA, Canada and India, Murray proposes ‘three modes of Sikh engagement with the museum form: first, the mobilization of mainstream museums to highlight a broad ‘‘civilizational’’ narrative about Sikhism; secondly, more locally driven historically narratives, such as exhibitions that focus on the history of the community in diaspora rather than focusing on Sikh history writ large or the history of the tradition in South Asia; and thirdly, the development of what we can call the ‘‘Gurdwara Museum’’, where the museum is explicitly attached to a religious institution and emerges as an aspect of the engagement of that institution with its publics, both Sikh and not’ (pp. 51–2). The third model is more closely entwined with Sikh communities. The content of the gurdwara exhibitions, therefore, is less the objects themselves as objects than the persons and histories highlighted within the objects and paintings - the narration of history itself that is on display (p. 54). Collectively these three modes convey attempts to integrate Sikhism and Sikh people into mainstream culture, and the third mode ensures the interaction between the community and the Gurdwara, which is one of the aspirations of postcolonial museology. Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 7 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 A valuable addition to the collection is the responses of curators themselves to projects they have actually worked on that are about incorporating or introducing images or artefacts from South Asian religions into their collections. Deepak Sarma’s article on the tradition of the Kalighat (paintings of the Goddess Kali) reflects on his experiences as a guest curator of an exhibition entitled Indian Kalighat Paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2011. He was concerned about his use of a stereotypical portrayal of Kali—with protruding eyes and her tongue sticking out—to advertise the exhibition (on the title wall) as he felt that even though it was an effective marketing tool it portrayed Kali in a way that perpetuated colonialist stereotypes about representations of the goddess. As he put it, ‘it satisf[ied] imperialist voyeurism and exoticism’ (p. 27). The selection of this image prompted Sarma’s reflection on the colonialist history of the Kalighat tradition in East India (p. 31) and the concomitant responsibilities that museums hold (p. 29). A further aspect was Sarma’s position ‘as both an insider and an outsider’ (p. 32). To clarify, even though he was working as a museum professional in this context he shared the same cultural background as the object of his research, by virtue of being from the Indian subcontinent, which had an impact on his emotional investment in the project. His insider position caused him to feel discomfort in his decision to use the particular image of Kali as he felt ‘complicit in the generation and maintenance of stereotypes about Hinduism’ (p. 33). Sarma’s insider perspective represents an interesting strand in his study which is about the challenges of reconciling personal and professional beliefs. Chapter Five, by John Clarke, is also from a curatorial standpoint and was about the planning and development of a new gallery of Buddhist sculpture within the V&A over a period of nearly a decade. The gallery first opened in April 2009 but due to a major building project, it was subject to a planned closure in late 2013, but reopened later (p. 67). Clarke, who was the lead curator, reports ‘the tensions, issues and challenges arising from the location of a gallery dedicated to Buddhist art within an avowedly secular British national institution’ (p. 67). Buddhist focus groups were enlisted alongside the opinions of other groups and the need to maintain religious neutrality was pitted against the religiously motivated responses of Buddhists who viewed the images and objects reverentially and so conceived of the display and exhibition from the standpoint of meditation and contemplation (pp. 68–70). Clarke talks about the challenges of balancing concerns and priorities: ‘[W]hile Buddhists clearly constituted key stakeholders, in numerical terms they made up a very small percentage of the total audience’ (p. 70). Another pertinent issue that may not apply to Hinduism and 8 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 Sikhism is the growing number of Buddhists in the West, which may have had an impact on the expectations for the gallery, and for future planning (see p. 79). Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is a much-needed study. There have been a number of studies that have examined the placements of sacred objects from the Christian tradition in secular spaces but the focus on artefacts from nonWestern and South Asian religious traditions has been little explored. The exhibition of these objects has socio-cultural and pedagogical benefits as they address the histories of minority religious groups and seek to foster intercultural dialogue. The book also addresses the issue of how to rethink the museum space in a postcolonial climate. The museum space is not neutral and, as Anne Murray describes in her chapter, ‘is in many ways a quintessentially colonial institution, born in India of the British colonial drive to categorize, rationalize, and display the Indian past’ (p. 52). In postcolonialism ‘[t]he museum. . . is reimagined for new publics and new politics; we also see diverse audiences inscribing new meanings within the museum form’ (p. 53). Part of this challenge concerns a balancing act of mutual respect between the different groups involved, an agenda reflected in the individual chapter contributions. In addition to the mechanics of display, and beyond the specific exhibitions, are wider issues about policy and practice that many of these chapters point to, and which are fundamental to the politics of museum culture. These involve policies about acquisition, conservation policy and education programmes. Finally, while the addition of colour photographs of exhibits was very helpful it would have been useful to see more images of the objects in situ within the gallery spaces and installation shots. The last book in this section, Art and Religion in the 21st Century by Aaron Rosen, is a beautifully illustrated book that looks at the relationship between religion and art in the contemporary era. There have been a number of studies that have discussed the complex and ongoing relationship between religion and art in earlier epochs but fewer that have looked at more recent periods, especially in the contemporary age. One of Rosen’s central objectives is to dispel the misperception that religion and modern art are opposed (p. 9). In his nuanced discussion he presents a broad survey of art and artists from different cultural traditions whose work engages with the religious in direct and indirect ways. By picking out broad themes in which to anchor his discussion he shows that ‘[c]ontemporary art is far more than just a cluster of conflagrations’ (p. 10) and that in fact ‘the dialogue between art and religion appears to be deepening’ (p. 18), which problematizes the secularization thesis. Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 9 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 Rosen examines the controversies surrounding works such as Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary by discussing the culture wars of the 1990s (p. 15). He also rethinks these works in the light of their transgression by offering alternatives to conventional interpretations. What Rosen shows in his careful readings is that acts of transgression should not be viewed simply in terms of the extent of desecration. Whilst we cannot overlook the fact that some of these works have as their intention empty provocation, many court controversy because they are attempting to agitate about something else. This might be that they try to expose the banality of representation or because they are making a political statement, as Oleg Mavromatti did in 2000. His self-crucifixion has since become a symbol of artistic repression in Russia under Vladimir Putin’s regime (p. 50). Rosen expands the sense of religion beyond looking at the practices and rituals of specific religious traditions to thinking about broader issues of cultural identity, civic memory and embodied practice (p. 19). This seems apposite in a cultural climate where religious identity is more fraught and complex than ever before. Rosen chooses to discount ‘spirituality’ as a category because he finds its use too unclear in its problematic relation to the religious (p. 22). Whilst I agree with his reservations I think it is an important term and category that needs to be reconceptualized to look at its pertinence within the contemporary era and how it can be used alongside and independently of religion. The book would have been stronger still by covering more fully the use of digital media and technology in the production and reception of contemporary religious work, as artists are turning to the digital as modes of expression. But Rosen does a fantastic job of showing the multiplicity of ways in which contemporary artists are engaging with religion and will continue to do so (p. 23). Many studies about contemporary religious art tend to almost exclusively examine art from the Western world, particularly North America and Europe. Rosen’s book is unique in that he includes the work of artists from a host of different geographical locations and cultural contexts, some of whom are established whilst others are emerging, and his notes that accompany the image detail the religious, cultural and ethnic contexts that are relevant to each artist. It was refreshing to see lesser known work by established artists such as David Shrigley, who is known for his deadpan drawings. Here we see his The Bell (2007), which expresses his usual satire albeit in a different format from his conventional style of drawing. Among the many emerging artists is the Nepalese-born, UK-based artist Govinda Sah ‘Azad’, whose art explores the sublime in the post-millennial age. Rosen also talks about the significance of contemporary art markets in 10 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism different quarters such as the Middle East and how art fairs and biennials have been instrumental in promoting contemporary art in a global world. The rich seam of work reproduced, and particularly of lesser known work, makes this vital not only for scholars of visual religious studies but also for artists who are engaged with religion in their practices, and art historians/ theorists who are interested in studying the relationship between religion and the visual arts. 2. Secularism and the Post-Secular Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 The two books reviewed in this section respond to what can be described as the revisions and reconfigurations of both secularism as a concept and the secularization thesis which predicted the decline of religion with the development of modernization. This oversimplification, as addressed in Charles Taylor’s seminal text A Secular Age (HarvardUP [2007]), has led to a proliferation of studies in the last decade which have focused on the forms of secularism in the contemporary age. Two points are noteworthy about the approaches taken in the books under review. These texts dispense with the flaws of the secularization thesis by avoiding treating it as a universal thesis and instead seek to contextualize an understanding of the secular within terms of the regionally specific. This pluralistic understanding of the secular leads to manifold accounts that not only vary but sometimes conflict and cut across each other. Further to this point is the understanding of the differences that exist between the theories about the secular as conceived in national constitutions or other regulatory bodies and the actual lived experiences of secularism. The lack of uniformity and heterogeneity of expressions about the secular are conveyed expertly in the two texts under review in this section. Confronting Secularism in Europe and India: Legitimacy and Disenchantment in Contemporary Times (published in paperback in 2015) is a volume of case studies of secularism in the contemporary climate, edited by Brian Black, Gavin Hyman and Graham M. Smith. The book emerged from two conferences on the subject held by the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University in 2011. The four themes that form the structure of the book are: (1) Political Secularism; (2) Secularism and Religion; (3) Secularism, Religion and Violence; (4) Beyond Secularism? Brian Black’s detailed introduction outlines the scope of the volume which outlines issues that are current in secularism. These include how, since the 1990s, the concept of secularism has been challenged in ways that have led to its revision and expansion. This invariably involves looking Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 11 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 at it within the context of lived experience. A charge that is often made against secularism is that it is conceptualized within Western Enlightenment traditions. This invariably problematizes its application to non-Western traditions. A unique aspect of the book, which seeks to displace this bias and unequal dynamic, is to look at types of secularisms in Europe and India sideby-side where the concept is interpreted as plural and culturally specific (p. 1). Pairing India with Europe also underscores the importance of religion in discussions about secularism, which is something that had been downplayed by the secularism thesis. While in many parts of Europe, the increase in secularism often goes hand in hand with the decline of religion, religion and religious difference is an integral part of Indian society and hence we cannot speak of the same correlation. One of the most interesting topics explored in a number of chapters is the revision of the Western bias of secularism, so that rather than conceiving of secularism as a Western idea derived from European history and imposed on India, secularism becomes ‘forged out of a shared colonial experience’ (p. 5). Recognizing the mutual development of secularism prevents the negative and colonialist perception of secularism being a Western idea that is ill suited to an Indian context because of its anti-religious sentiments. The defences of secularism, as presented by the first two chapters, convey not only the advantages but also the essentiality of a secular state in the complex multicultural terrain of India. In Chapter Two Rajeev Bhargava discusses the various ways in which Indian secularism ensures that individuals are able to maintain their belief systems and lifestyles. In a bold move he suggests that the model of secularism in India could be instructive to the West. He argues for a conception of secularism that is different from mainstream conceptions and one that ‘encourages the state to have passive respect for religion’ (p. 43). This policy of non-interference is practised within India where the public role of the secular state is separated from the private matter of religion. Secularism in India is not incompatible with the religious diversity that is core to Indian society, and this is where the model can be applied to Europe, in which the populations are becoming religiously diverse. In Chapter One Rochana Bajpai takes a different line by arguing that the adoption of European ideals in the secular state—such as the ‘values of liberal citizenship, of non-discrimination and equality for all individuals’ (p. 26)— are core to the state’s policy of the protection of India’s minority communities such as the Dalits. The articles in Section Three to a greater or lesser extent reveal the failure of secularism to protect its people from violence, threats of which may come from inside the community (India) or from outside. Either way, 12 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 the contributors argue, the secular state in India is unable to contain religious violence from erupting, and equally in post-colonial migrant states in Europe religious violence is prevalent. In Chapter Six Deborah Sutton, following the views of Ashis Nandy, takes an opposing line of thought to Rochana Bajpai in Chapter One by arguing that India’s secular state does not protect minority groups but is instead responsible for violence. Furthermore, Indian secularism is viewed as ‘an historical corrective on the forces of communal violence which had immediately preceded Independence’ (p. 116) and ‘[a]s a consequence, the ideal of secularism has been shielded from any inquiry into the role of the state in such violence’ (p. 12). The conflict between secular states and religion calls for a reconceptualization of the secular, an idea which is advanced by thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, who addresses the needs of contemporary Europe, as addressed by Brian Black in his introduction (pp. 13–14). Habermas recognizes that in societies that are in a state of transformation because of the arrival of migrant groups it is imperative to think about the different needs of religious communities as this is the only way religious plurality is possible. In Chapter Seven, Evert van der Zweerde explores the post-secular landscape in Europe by looking at recent incidents that have been inflamed by the clash of values between the religious and secular such as the publication in 2005 of twelve satirical cartoons, most of which depicted the Prophet Muhammed. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten announced that the feature was intended to be part of an initiative about self-censorship but the images were viewed by Muslims in Denmark and worldwide as blasphemous, and the release of the images set off a wave of protests across the Middle East. The growing numbers and greater visibility of certain religious minorities within Europe which van der Zweerde discusses, increase tensions between the religious and the secular. Returning to the hypothesis of Rajeev Bhargava, the solution may lie his concept of secularism in India which can provide a methodological framework for the future. Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age, edited by Michael Rectenwald, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, has similar concerns to the previous book but takes a global rather than a comparative outlook and in its sheer coverage examines the many different forms that secularism takes across the world. The excellent introduction details the main objectives about the state of secularism as it exists in different countries whilst also thinking about the prospects it holds for the future of these places. The term ‘post-secularism’ is used within the book in order to convey a conceptual shift, where the limitations of secularism as a universal doctrine give way to a recognition that secularism is plural, diverse and that it ‘takes on different social and Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 13 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 cultural meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed’ (p. 6). The chapters in turn reflect the numerous positions of secularism, using empirical case studies and historical and theoretical reflection. They also take seriously the significance of religion, understanding the importance of nuancing a relationship between the co-existence of the religious with the non-religious, thereby revising the perspective of the secularization thesis. The appearance of the religious in different realms of action, from the social to the political and military, forces consideration of religion in public life. Chika Watanabe’s chapter brings this into sharp focus in her discussion about ‘how aid actors engage in processes of boundary making and blurring regarding the categories of religion and secularism, and what might be their social, moral, and political effects’ (p. 272). She gives the example of faith-based organizations, which, she argues, show how integral religion is in development efforts around the world (p. 272). The relationship between religion and the state in each of these contexts is not fixed and involves different formations that involve different degrees of separation, interaction and cooperation depending on the socio-political context in question. Another aim stated by the editors is to bridge the gap between ‘sweeping theoretical analyses of secularism on the one hand and accounts relating to the lived experiences of the formations as they have evolved in different parts of the world on the other’ (p. 7). The book is divided into two parts. The first, entitled ‘Histories & Theories of the (Post)Secular’ and the second, ‘Case Studies: Global Secularism’, examines various global studies that document specific sociopolitical cultural contexts. The chapters in the second part examine a wide range of examples of secularism across the world. Chapters Ten and Eleven discuss issues pertaining to secularization in regions of the post-Ottoman empire. Arolda Elbasani and Murat Somer look at the cases of Turkey and Albania, which are two predominantly Muslim countries, and describe the evolution of secular models which sought to promote European ideals, thereby downplaying and ‘managing’ the role of Islam (p. 171), and even ‘reforming’ and ‘rationalizing it’ (p. 186). Despite the state control of Islam, both countries witnessed the rise of Islamic parties since the 1990s: the proIslamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and in Albania the Albania Muslim Community (AMC). These religious groups have seized on their faith as being a way of reconfiguring ‘the institutional limits of the secular’ (p. 180), efforts which have changed the character of these formerly officially secular countries. In Chapter Eleven Ays° e Seda Müftügil discusses the history of compulsory and phased introduction of religious education in the Turkish state education system, which started in the 1960s and was 14 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 consolidated in the 1982 constitution (p. 189). This raised the question of the compatibility of the education system with the existing secularism clause of the constitution (p. 203) and the growing sympathies towards the religious sentiments of the country which was in contrast to the atmosphere in the 1920s. Chapter Twelve, authored by Jonathan R. Beloff, looks at the case of Rwanda and discusses the impact that colonialism has had on attitudes towards religion following the 1994 Genocide. His discussion shows how religion, in this case Christianity, was used as a political tool to homogenize culture, and to problematize existing ethnic groups. Beloff discusses the historical changes that Rwanda has undergone right up to its current situation. He shows how the religious history of the country has meant that religion is still an important part of the lives of many Rwandans but it is now confined to the realm of private life. Although Rwanda is still predominantly a Christian country, the Rwandan Patriot Front government promotes the freedom of religion, which has led to the rise of Islam as well as of nonreligious groups. Chapters Eighteen and Nineteen discuss the reception of categories of the non-religious in North America, which conveys how, in spite of the number of non-believers and secularists, religious identity (including irreligious identity) evokes highly charged responses. In Chapter Nineteen, James McBride talks about ‘the myth of secularism in America’, where religious beliefs are higher than any other developed nation (p. 316). In Chapter Eighteen, Charles Louis Richter states that ‘[t]hroughout the twentieth century, Americans consistently associated irreligion with foreign, existential threats, real or perceived, to its founding ideals.. . . The accusation of atheism was a powerful tool politically and socially, and still is, only to a slightly lesser extent. Only recently have Americans begun to be able to claim legitimacy for their irreligious worldviews’ (p. 307). This shows us that, contrary to popular expectations that secularism, in the sense of irreligion, is a commonly chosen affiliation within Western society, it is only relatively recently within the United States that it has started to be viewed unproblematically. This also shows that secularism is not a neutral term that signals the absence of religion, but is in fact ideologically charged. One of the most outstanding contributions is by Rajeev Bhargava, who is also a contributor to the previous collection, Confronting Secularism in Europe and India: Legitimacy and Disenchantment in Contemporary Times (Bloomsbury [2015]). He takes as his opening line the value-laden connotations of ‘the secular’, which ‘suggests. . . an age of truth and liberation, one that has left behind the dark period of religion, of superstition, falsehood, obscurantism Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 15 3. Georges Bataille and the Sacred Georges Bataille has occupied a problematic and relatively marginalized position in critical and cultural theory until recently. His erstwhile negative reputation can be explained by reactions to what some consider his pornographic fiction, such as Story of the Eye, as well as the fact that his work spans so many disciplines, leading to him slip between disciplinary categories. The increasing number of translations of his works into English has led to a renewed interest in his work, as well as a reappraisal of his central themes, including the death of God, the role of religion and the sacred. The Sacred and Society by William Pawlett and Negative Ecstasies: Georges Bataille and the Study of Religion, edited by Jeremy Biles and Kent L. Brintnall, are both significant additions to scholarship on the significance of the sacred in Bataille’s thinking and convey the growth of more specialized studies about Bataille. Pawlett is interested in looking at the sociological aspects of Bataille’s thought, especially the way social bonds ‘re-energize society by challenging individualism’ (cover matter) and he argues for the significance of Bataille for a study of the sociology of religion. Taking his lead from the Durkheimian Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 and oppression’ (p. 109). He examines the culture of both ancient and modern India and argues that post-secularism in the sense of the co-existence of the secular and the religious has existed in both eras and societies. Bhargava’s findings are critically important to the development of the study of the secular not simply in India but more generally. Like many other contributors he discusses the contribution of what has become regarded as the central text of secularism, Taylor’s A Secular Age, but argues that ‘India had, therefore, worked out its own conception of secularism that is neither Christian nor western’ (p. 125), an idea that is crucial for postcolonial India. The case of India is important because it has a secular constitution precisely to support the plurality of religions and so operates differently from the Western concept of secularism which envisions a separation of church and state. The pragmatics of religious pluralism and diversity in India are explored further by Rochelle Almeida in Chapter Nine, which looks at the demands on the state to represent religions fairly and equally through the allocation of national days, or what are commonly known as ‘Gazetted’ holidays (p. 156). These dates reveal, as Almeida points, out the ‘nation’s commitment to secularism’ (p. 156). Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age is invaluable reading for future study of the post-secular in a global age that encompasses manifold expressions of faith. 16 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 school of sociology, Bataille examines how profound communication and communion entail the overcoming of individuality to merge with the collective, which can be an ambivalent experience involving joy and anguish. Pawlett looks at how the various strands of Bataille’s thought—animality, eroticism, mysticism (which are also the subjects of individual chapters)— lead to the same outcome of seeking to overcome the limits of being. The presentation of Bataille as a sociological thinker (the book is part of the Key Sociologists series) and an exponent of the Durkheimian view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (p. xv) is a corrective to many extant accounts that conceive of Bataille as asocial, perverted and anti-humanist. As Pawlett conveys, Bataille was deeply interested in society and in the different ways that people can transcend their limited conditions in experiences that transcended the profane. Another strength of the book is Pawlett’s analysis of the different modalities of the sacred, in particular its right (beneficent) and left (maleficent). But rather than viewing them as discrete, Pawlett shows how according to Bataille the sacred is fundamentally unstable and sacred experiences involve a veering from right-pole experiences to left-pole experiences, a dynamic which is expressed in his erotic novels, where transgression often presages resacralization. All too often his understanding of the sacred is mediated from the perspective of the profane, where the profane is protected from the right pole of the sacred. The examination of the sacred from within, as it were, brings a fresh perspective. Pawlett’s study is a notable addition to the growing scholarship on Bataille. Not only does he present a perspicacious understanding of Bataille’s conceptual preoccupations, but he also conveys Bataille’s relevance to contemporary thought, thereby revitalizing his importance as a thinker for the twenty-first century. In an age of increasing secularism in some parts of the world, and growing religiosity and fundamentalism in others, a renewed consideration of conceptions that are often conflated—religion, the sacred, and God or the divine—articulates the complex terrain of religious feelings. Bataille’s work can also be used to address issues that pertain to the postsecular condition (which Pawlett describes as de-secularization), namely dislocation, loss, and posthumanism which are prescient in the digital age. Pawlett addresses Bataille’s pertinence vis-à-vis his critique of capitalism: ‘the failure of the capitalist system to produce a deep sense of community, its inability to acknowledge the violent force inherent in the sacred and its vulnerability to cultures or groups that can achieve these—gives Bataille’s writings a remarkable relevance in the post-9/11 landscape’ (p. xiv). Pawlett shows how Bataille’s theory of excess, which affects systems of all kinds, Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 17 Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 from the political to the economic, can be viewed in terms of an ethics of giving, where resources need to be expended, in orgiastic festivity, rather than accumulated or appropriated by an elite. In that respect the sacred operates as a revolutionary force in culture. The ethical dimension of Bataille’s notion of the accursed share has been little explored in scholarship but is here advanced by Pawlett. The excess energy can just as easily destroy as it can create, and it can be viewed as being responsible for the threats to the human race in the form of warfare, for example. Far from being antihumanist, a sentiment that has been used to describe Bataille, he is shown in Pawlett’s study to be an incredibly prescient thinker who is deeply concerned about the needs and desires of humans and how these both bind and divide us from our environment. Negative Ecstasies: Georges Bataille and the Study of Religion is conceived of in the same vein as Pawlett’s study, insofar as the editors and contributors convey both how Bataille’s work is concerned with the sacred and society, as well as with his relevance as a critical thinker in contemporary society. Bataille’s relationship to institutionalized religion was problematic. Even though he converted to Catholicism in his youth, he soon lost his faith and veered in the opposite direction, pursuing experiences, such as sexual excess, that were counter to the dictates of organized religion. In his work he also critiqued the institutions of religion both in his religiously transgressive novels and in his non-fictional studies as he felt that this conception of religion stifled the excess of the sacred and was part of the profane order of life. But this understanding does not detract from his sensibility, which is religious—in his interest in community, sacrifice, mysticism, the overlap between eroticism and spirituality, and death. For that reason he can be described as a religious thinker. Biles and Brintnall’s book, aptly conceived at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, is about developing the threads in his work—the sacred, eroticism/mysticism, the death of God—to see how they depart from conventional religious thinking and how they contribute to his a-theological outlook and, in particular, the negativity (meant in a Hegelian sense) at the core of religion. In the introduction the editors are clear about the volume’s purpose, which is ‘not to promote the canonization of Bataille or anyone else—nor is it precisely to (re)integrate him into the debates that his work, even if indirectly, has done so much to shape. Rather, taking inspiration from Bataille’s economic theory, this collection strives to break open the field of religious studies; taken as a whole, it adumbrates a generate economy of religious studies and in so doing suggests new paths into, and approaches for, the study of religion’ (p. 15). This invites a number of approaches and 18 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 the inclusion of different subject areas which may, on first inspection, appear to be outside the range of concerns of the religious but which actually reveal the implications of the sacred—and closely aligned sacrifice—within the profane realm. In concerning himself with the relationship between the sacred and profane domains, Bataille was anticipating the preoccupations of secularist thinkers as well as showing the far-reaching application that his ideas have in contemporary culture. The first article in the collection, by Lynne Gerber, examines ‘America’s fascination with body size, weight loss, and fatness’, which, she argues, ‘has decidedly religious overtones’ (p. 19). Drawing from Bataille’s ideas of profligacy and abundance in The Accursed Share, she uses his theories to elucidate attitudes towards fat and fatness which become part of a bigger discourse about disgust, monstrosity, and ultimately death. With an increased number of academic programmes and publications on body weight and appearance, Gerber calls for theorists and activists to use Bataille’s ideas to further fat politics. Hugh B. Urban’s contribution about Bataille and the tradition of Hindu Tantra is a welcome addition for many reasons. Firstly, Bataille’s treatment of religion has almost exclusively been discussed within the Christian (and particularly Catholic) tradition, and little has written about outside of this narrow remit. This is limiting, particularly given Bataille’s interest in certain non-Western traditions such as yoga and Tantra (p. 69) and his general interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. Urban unpacks the relationship between eroticism, sacrifice and transgression as worked out in Bataille in the context of discussion about the worship of the goddess Kamakhya and her temple in Assam. He finds that the fluidity of Hindu Tantra complements Bataille’s own ideas about sexual excess and eroticism, thus opening up fruitful correspondence for further research. Jean-Joseph Goux’s article stays within the Western world but seeks to refine our understanding of Bataille’s religious perspective by distinguishing the Protestant spirit of capitalism from the Catholic propensity for excess, where Bataille can be located in the latter. The increasing marginalization of the religious in industrial life, as discussed in the work of Weber, constitutes the framework of secularism, which Goux argues is fundamental to Bataille’s project (pp. 106–7). Goux sets up a contrast between capitalism within the Protestant ethic which is oriented towards asceticism, and capitalism in contemporary society, which ‘is dominated by the unleashing of consumption’, and which leads to the sacred (p. 107). It is this sacred excess that Bataille aspires towards in his writing and which involves the annihilation of limits. Religion, Spirituality and Secularism | 19 Books Reviewed Biles, Jeremy and Kent L. Brintnall. Negative Ecstasies: Georges Bataille and the Study of Religion. FordhamUP. [2015] pp. 311. pb $32 ISBN 9 7808 2326 5206. Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 The death of God is the subject of contributions by Mark Jordan and Allan Stoekl, both of whom address the more fundamental point of the contribution of Bataille’s thought to postmodern theology, an area where he largely been omitted, with the exception of work by the cultural critic Mark C. Taylor. His omission can be explained partly on the grounds of his ‘obscene’ writing (pp. 12–13) but his trajectory, in his return to the sacred, shares common ground with more mainstream thinkers such as John Caputo who were, in their various ways, arguing for the recovery of a sacred in the absence of a transcendent God. Another strand of the book is Bataille’s influence on his contemporaries. The influences on Bataille’s thinking, such as Nietzsche (vis-à-vis Léon Chestov) and Hegel have been well written about. What has been less explored is the impact he had on generations of thinkers. He is regarded as a precursor to poststructuralist thought, and many thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva have written about him and acknowledged their indebtedness to him. However, what has been lacking is a sustained engagement with their shared themes and preoccupations. This is discussed in Mark D. Jordan’s article, ‘Foucault’s Sacred Sociology’ (pp. 169–81), and Zeynep Direk’s article, ‘Bataille and Kristeva on Religion’ (pp. 182–201). Negative Ecstasies is a lively and thought-provoking text that reflects the eclectic subject areas to which Bataille’s ideas lend themselves. To use the words of the editors themselves, the volume ‘not only does the necessary work of furthering exegeting Bataille; it activates Bataille’ (p. 16). It is essential reading not only for Bataille studies but also the expanding and transdisciplinary areas of the study of religion, and the range of backgrounds of contributors that reach beyond departments of religion reflects this. Bataille himself wrote on many different areas and disciplines and could be described as doing away with disciplinary boundaries. The connections with new areas of study, and continued explorations with others, add to the richness of this collection. The engagement with his work by established scholars such as David Chidester and Amy Hollywood as well as emerging scholars not only reflects the seriousness with which Bataille’s writings should be taken but also the continuing legacy his work has for future generations. 20 | Religion, Spirituality and Secularism Black, Brian, Gavin Hyman and Graham M. Smith. Confronting Secularism in Europe and India: Legitimacy and Disenchantment in Contemporary Times. Bloomsbury. [2015] pp. 208. pb £22.49 ISBN 9 7814 7426 9223. Pawlett, William. Georges Bataille: The Sacred and Society. Routledge. [2015] pp. 156. hb £85 ISBN 9 7804 1564 5485. Plate, S. Brent. Key Terms in Material Religion. Bloomsbury. [2015] pp. 284. pb £21.99 ISBN 9 7814 7259 5478. Rosen, Aaron. Art and Religion in the 21st Century. Thames & Hudson. [2015] pp. 256. hb £32 ISBN 9 7805 0023 9315. Sullivan, Bruce. Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces: Exhibiting Asian Religions in Museums. Bloomsbury. [2015] pp. 184. pb £19.99 ISBN 9 7814 7259 0800. Williams, Roman R., ed. Seeing Religion: Toward a Visual Sociology of Religion. Routledge. [2015] pp. 203. pb £31.99 ISBN 9 7811 3889 7809. Downloaded from http://ywcct.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on May 20, 2016 Rectenwald, Michael, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age. De Gruyter. [2015] pp. 344. hb £82.99 ISBN 9 7816 1451 6750.