“And People Shall Be Contaminated by My Doctrine”: Religion, Science, and Nationalism in Assi Meshullam’s Order of the Unclean

Abstract

This article discusses Assi Meshullam’s inter-discipline ongoing art project Order of the Unclean, while addressing issues of Religion, Art, Nationalism and Science embodied in the work. Using Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “reparative reading” and Bruno Latour’s discussion on the concept of modernism, the article argues that Meshullam returns to the polytheistic history of the area, and provokes the tension between religious faith and heresy, not in order to “take a side” in the debating between religiosity and secularism, but to put the so-called contrasted terms in question, mark their points of mutual inclusion, and offer a complex perspective on the relationship between the sacred, the secular and the national in modern Israeli society. The study lies in an academic examination of Meshullam’s monumental work for the first time, combining knowledge and methodologies in art history, comparative religion studies and critical theories.