Between Dancing and Writing: The Practice of Religious Studies

Notes

259 Notes Preface 1. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche (1954), 406. 2. Graham, Martha. Blood Memory (1991), 5. 3. Margaret Miles is another scholar of religion who makes this observation and assesses the implications for theory and method in the study of religion. She focuses on visual images in paintings and architecture, arguing that language users need practice in critical image use in order to understand the experiences of non-language users. See Image as Insight (1985) and Carnal Knowing (1991). 4. For an excellent summary of this quandary, see Susan Foster, Reading Dancing (1986), xiv-xv. 5. This discussion echoes the contrast Talal Asad makes between symbolic representation and disciplinary practice in his Genealogies of Religion (1993). His point is that the fields of anthropology and religious studies are predicated on the assumption that bodily action is symbolic representation and therefore capable of being interpreted, translated. He contrasts that perception with the view of medieval Christians for whom bodily action was a transformative practice—one that opened up capacities for experience and expression that would not otherwise exist. Introduction 1. Miriam, David, and Judith all dance in celebration of God’s gracious actions on their behalf (Exod. 15:20; 2 Sam. 6:14-16, 20-23 and 1 Chron. 15:16, 25-29; Judith 15:12-3); the Psalms admonish believers to “Praise him with timbrel and dance” (Ps. 150:4, also Ps. 149:3) and thank God for having “turned for me my mourning into dancing” (Ps. 30:11); the author of Ecclesiastes affirms that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven . . . a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccles. 3:1, 4). In the New Testament, the dance performed by the daughter of Herodias seduces Herod into granting her mother’s wish for the head of John the Baptist (Matt. 14:6; Mark 6:22); Jesus, in describing the “men of this generation” compares them to children in the market place calling to one another, “We piped to you and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep” (Matt.11:16-19; Luke 7:31-4); the elder son to the prodigal, returning from the field, hears “music and dancing” (Luke 15:25). For additional references of dance in the Hebrew Bible and their etymological derivations, see Mayer Gruber, “Ten Dance-Derived Expressions in the Hebrew Bible,” in Dance as Religious Studies (Adams and Apostolos-Cappadona, eds., 1990). For the cultural and religious contexts for the biblical references to dance, see W.O.E. Oesterly, The Sacred Dance: A Study in Comparative Folklore (1923). All biblical quotations are from the Oxford publication of the Revised Standard Version (1977). For generous and conservative arguments concerning the presence of dance in Christian history, see Louis Backman, Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine (1952), and J.G. Davies, Liturgical Dance: An Historical, Theological, and Practical Handbook (1984), respectively. 2. See Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (1972); Edward Andrews, The People Called Shakers (1953); Al Raboteau, Slave Religion (1978); Sterling Stuckey, “Christian Conversion and the Challenge of Dance,” in Choreographing History, edited by Susan Foster (1995). 3. Judith Lynne Hanna, To Dance Is Human (1987), Chapter 1. 4. See Deborah Jowitt, Time and the Dancing Image (1988), Chapter 1. 5. See Preus (1987) and McCutcheon (1997, 2001) for prominent examples of this narrative. See Roberts (2004) for a critique. 6. Gerardus van der Leeuw, Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art (1963), 271. Hereafter “S.” The English version is translated from a German translation of a Dutch edition that was edited and published after van der Leeuw’s death. See Wegen en Grenzen. Studie over de verhouding van religie en kunst (1948, 1955). 7. See Robert Cummings Neville, “Religious Studies and Theological Studies,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (61:2), 185-200. 8. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge (1980), 81-2. 9. Asad (1993), Chapter 2. 10. Bell (1997), 81. 11. Foster (1986), and in her essay, “Choreographing History” (1995). 12. Schechner, in Schechner and Appel (1990), 36. 260 Notes 13. For further discussion of these issues, see LaMothe, “Why Dance? Towards a Theory of Religion as Practice and Performance.” 14. Catherine Bell, “Modernism and Postmodernism in the Study of Religion,” Religious Studies Review (1996), 187. 15. It is possible to make the argument that these tools...