What’s the Matter with You, Rock?!: What the Study of Daoism Can Say about Religious Images

This essay is about the trouble we scholars have with addressing religious images and object agency. It introduces one moment in a Daoist ritual to suggest alternative models for thinking about what images do. To do so, it intentionally looks outside scholarly discourse and to the music of Nina Simo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Naparstek, Michael E. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: Method & theory in the study of religion
Year: 2025, Volume: 37, Issue: 2, Pages: 196-214
Further subjects:B Religious Images
B Daoist ritual
B object agency
B Daoism
B Idolatry
B Nina Simone
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:This essay is about the trouble we scholars have with addressing religious images and object agency. It introduces one moment in a Daoist ritual to suggest alternative models for thinking about what images do. To do so, it intentionally looks outside scholarly discourse and to the music of Nina Simone to frame Religious Studies’ concern over Idol Anxiety as a way to circumvent the limits of what we can and cannot say about images. By reframing the paradigm of what images mean into the emic imperative of what images do, we avail ourselves to untapped models and vocabularies to address non-subjective agency.
ISSN:1570-0682
Contains:Enthalten in: Method & theory in the study of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700682-bja10142