Abstract
AbstractThis article provides a picture for religious studies scholars of the overlaps and differences between three recent theories of material religion which concern human perception, perceptible things, and the sometimes imperceptible forces that configure humans and things. The theories of note are: affect studies (an approach to the visceral forces that drive relations between beings); object‐oriented ontology (a contentious movement in speculative realist philosophy); and everyday aesthetics (a subfield of philosophical aesthetics i.e. equally fragmented but less fractious). Although they all share interest in the interplay of material and experience, affect studies, everyday aesthetics, and object‐oriented inquiry overlap with each other in ways that are rarely, if ever, explicitly addressed. For this reason, scholars of lived, embodied, and material religion should know about them, how they differ, and when to use one or the other. In religious studies, I suggest we should think of them as three methodological responses to a desire the field has to think about material religion. Importantly, they are not three equal choices. I argue that everyday aesthetics is not only the most interesting but the most useful option, and I illustrate its potential uses.
Published Version
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