S Brent Plate: 3 books

A leading scholar explores the importance of physical objects and sensory experience in the practice of religion. ** ** Humans are needy. We need things: objects, keepsakes, stuff, tokens, knickknacks, bits and pieces, junk, and treasure. We carry special objects in our pockets and purses, and place...

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics is an innovative and creative attempt to unsettle and reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Constructing what he calls an "allegorical aesthetics," Plate sifts through Benjamin's writings...

Religion and cinema share a capacity for world making, ritualizing, mythologizing, and creating sacred time and space. Through cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, and other production activities, film takes the world “out there” and refashions it. Religion achieves similar ends by setting...