Bodies and things in the forest of symbols |
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| Authors: | Paul Christopher Johnson |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Afroamerican and African Studies , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA paulcjoh@umich.edu |
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| Abstract: | Taking Manuel Vásquez's book as its point of departure, this essay explores what a truly materialist history of materiality for the study of religion might look like, in contradistinction to idealist histories of materiality. It then mounts a defense of Clifford Geertz as a pioneering scholar of material and embodied religion, against the positions taken by Vásquez and, earlier, by Talal Asad, applying a critique that has by now become overly entrenched and unquestionable. |
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| Keywords: | materiality religion culture Geertz genealogy |
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