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Jens Kreinath: "Filming Rituals - Implications of Visual Culture for the Anthropological Study of Religion”
Abstract:
This lecture addresses theoretical and methodological issues in studying rituals through film. Even though anthropologists previously addressed the interrelation between film and ritual, such approaches in ritual theory and visual anthropology often dismiss the possibility to determine the ways in which the practice of filming rituals actually shapes the anthropological perception of religions as part of visual culture. This lecture outlines significant shifts that led to the visualization of religious culture through the use of ethnography to study ritual in primarily visual terms. Starting with the formation of the anthropological category of 'ritual' and the various uses of film in the earliest anthropological research on ritual to the approaches in visual anthropology of religion, this lecture will provide a holistic point of view to reflect upon the formation of research paradigms in the anthropological study of religion and culture. The aim is to theorize namely how far this practice of visual documentation and representation is tied into the concept formation in anthropological approaches to religion. The overarching question is in how far was the delineation of ‘ritual’ as a field of study tied into the emergence of visual culture.