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Jun 2, 2022
Materializing the Bible
Scripture, Sensation, Place
Summary
What happens when the written words of biblical scripture are transformed into experiential, choreographed environments? To answer this question, anthropologist James Bielo explores a diverse range of practices and places that “materialize the Bible,” including gardens, theme parks, shrines, museums, memorials, exhibitions, theatrical productions, and other forms of replication. Integrating ethnographic, archival, and mass media data, case studies focus primarily on U.S. Christianity from the late 19th-century to the present.
In Materializing the Bible: Scripture, Sensation, Place (Bloomsbury, 2021), Bielo argues that materializing the Bible works as an authorizing practice to intensify intimacies with scripture and circulate potent ideologies. Performed through the sensory experience of bodies, physical technologies, and infrastructures of place, Bielo illustrates how this phenomenon is always, ultimately, about expressions of power.
Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong: India.
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Tiatemsu Longkumer
Dr. Tiatemsu Longkumer is a faculty member in the Anthropology Department at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan. His doctoral research explored the complex interplay between indigenous religion and Christianity among the Ao Naga of Nagaland. Dr. Longkumer’s current research focuses on Buddhism in Bhutan. He teaches courses in anthropology, communication skills, and Generative AI.
