David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of
Matt Sakakeeny is Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University, and the author of
David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of
Matt Sakakeeny is Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University, and the author of
This entry explores the acoustics of religion as both a conceptual and historical question. After a brief discussion of the sensory epistemology underlying the modern concept of religion, the entry turns to some of the central themes addressed by anthropologists, musicologists, and historians concerned with the sonorities of religious practice. Key themes include the following: how phenomenologies of sound have provided a key point of reference for theological reflection in different traditions; the role of listening within practices of religious and ethical attunement; the acoustic and musical means by which religious knowledge is cultivated and religious ontologies recognized; the place of sound in defining the spatial and temporal architecture of religious communities. The entry concludes with a discussion of recent work on the acoustic epistemology shaping the category of the secular.
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