|
If you are seeing this message, you may be experiencing temporary network problems. Please wait a few minutes and refresh the page. If the problem persists, you may wish to report it to your local Network Manager.
It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest version of Microsoft or Mozilla web browser to help minimise these problems.
Wiley InterScience | |||
 Religion CompassVolume 3 Issue 4, Pages 770 - 783 Published Online: 9 Jun 2009 © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Abstract | References | Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 131K) | Related Articles | Citation Tracking  Touch and American Religions Copyright © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd ABSTRACTThe sense of touch plays an important role in many American religious practices. Yet dismissals of touch as an inferior mode of perception and reliance on textual sources that ignore touch have shaped research agendas. This essay identifies theories articulated by philosophical phenomenologists, students of ritual and performance studies, historians and anthropologists of art and architecture, neuroscientists, and feminist scholars that envision touch as a unique mode of gaining knowledge about the world and oneself and stimulating ethical behavior by working directly on the emotions to motivate empathetic, compassionate concern for others. The essay suggests how touch-oriented theories can aid the development of research areas in American religions where scholars have already begun fruitful explorations of tactility: studies of religious embodiment and ritual and of pain and its alleviation through divine healing or Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Religion Compass 3/4 (2009): 770–783, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00154.x | 
|
