Modeling the Religious Field

Religion, Spirituality, Mysticism, and Related World Views

Authors

  • Heinz Streib Universität Bielefeld
  • Ralph W. Hood University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v16i2.133

Keywords:

spirituality, mysticism, religion, religious field, Bourdieu

Abstract

Mapping the religious field of present-day Western cultures such as America and Europe requires a synopsis of perspectives. There are, on the one hand, classical ways of defining religion in theology, sociology and psychology, and also established sociological models of the religious field; and there are, on the other hand, recent changes in how people on the street implicitly and explicitly understand themselves and behave. Many are reluctant to identify as religious persons, but self-identify as “spiritual” or “spiritual, not religious.” In this text we introduce our conceptualization of religion and of the religious field. Key concepts of religion are transcendence and ultimacy. For structuring the religious field, we attend to the distinction between vertical and horizontal symbolization of transcendence and ultimacy, and to the distinction between institutional mediation and individual immediacy.

References

Ahmed, Leila. 1992. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Anderson Droogsma, Rachel. 2007. “Redefining Hijab: American Muslim Women’s Standpoints in Veiling.” Journal of Applied Communication Research 35(3): 294–319. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00909880701434299

Arthur, Linda B. 1999. “Introduction: Dress and the Social Control of the Body.” In Religion, Dress and the Body, edited by Linda B. Arthur, 1–7. Oxford: Berg. http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9781847888839/RELDRBODY0005

Auerbach, Michelle. 2008. “Drawing the Line at Modesty: My Place in the Order of Things.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 202–212. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bailey, David A., and Gilane Tawadros, eds. 2003. Veil: Veiling, Representation, and Contemporary Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brown, Wendy. 2006. Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bullock, Katherine. 2007. “Multiple Meanings of Hijab.” In Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes, 2nd ed., 85–135. Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Danylewycz, Marta. 1987. Taking the Veil: An Alternative to Marriage, Motherhood, and Spinsterhood in Quebec, 1840–1920. Edited by Paul-André Linteau, Alison Prentice and William Westfall. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart.

Davis, Fred. 1992. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1977. Women in the Vanishing Cloister: Organizational Decline in Catholic Religious Orders in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Eicher, Joanne B. and Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins. 1991. “Definition and Classification of Dress: Implications for Analysis of Gender Roles.” In Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Contexts, 2nd ed., edited by Ruth Barnes and Joanne B. Eicher, 8–28. New York: Berg.

El-Or, Tamar. 1997. “Visibility and Possibilities: Ultraorthodox Jewish Women Between the Domestic and Public Spheres.” Women’s Studies International Forum 20(5-6): 665–673. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(97)00060-5

Fanon, Frantz. 1994. A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove Press.

Goldman Carrel, Barbara. 1999. “Hasidic Women’s Head-Coverings: A Feminized System of Hasidic Distinction.” In Religion, Dress and the Body, edited by Linda B. Arthur, 163–179. Oxford: Berg.

———. 2008. “Shattered Vessels that Contain Divine Sparks: Unveiling Hasidic Women’s Dress Code.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 44–59. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Grubin, Eve. 2008. “After Eden: The Veil as a Conduit to the Internal.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 174–190. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hajjaji-Jarrah, Soraya. 2003. “Women’s Modesty in Qur’anic Commentaries: The Founding Discourse.” In The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, edited by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough, 181–213. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.

Hayes, Deirdre Ruth. 2010. “Framing the Veil: From the Familiar to the Feared.” PhD diss., University of South Australia.

Heath, Jennifer. 2008. “Introduction.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 1–23. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hélie-Lucas, Marie-Aimée. 1990. “Women, Nationalism, and Religion in the Algerian Struggle.” In Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing, edited by Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, 104–114. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Henkin, Yehuda. 2003. “Tzniut (Modesty)”. In Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women’s Issues, by Rabbi Yehuda Henkin, 131–174. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House.

———. 2008. Understanding Tzniut: Modern Controversies in the Jewish Community. Jerusalem: Urim Publications.

Hessini, Leila. 1994. “Wearing the Hijab in Contemporary Morocco: Choice and Identity.” In Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity, and Power, edited by Fatma Müge Göçek and Shiva Balaghi, 40–56. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hoodfar, Homa. 1992/1993. “The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: The Persistence of Colonial Images of Muslim Women.” Resources for Feminist Research 22(3/4): 5–18.

———. 2003. “More than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy.” In The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, edited by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough, 3–40. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.

Hyman, Paula E. 1998. “Gender and the Immigrant Jewish Experience in the United States.” In Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, edited by Judith R. Baskin, 312–336. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Jiwani, Yasmin. 2010. “Doubling Discourses and the Veiled Other: Mediations of Race and Gender in Canadian Media.” In States of Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century, edited by Sherene Razack, Malinda Smith and Sunera Thobani, 59–86. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines Books.

Joseph, Nathan. 1986. Uniforms and Non-Uniforms: Communication Through Clothing. New York: Greenwood Press.

Kahf, Mohja. 2008. “From Her Royal Body the Robe Was Removed: The Blessings of the Veil and the Trauma of Forced Unveilings in the Middle East.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 27–43. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kaiser, Susan B. 1990. The Social Psychology of Clothing: Symbolic Appearances in Context, 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan Publishers.

Keddie, Nikki R. 2004. “The Past and Present of Women in the Muslim World.” In Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, edited by Haideh Moghissi, 53–79. London: Routledge.

Khan, Sheema. 2009. Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman. Toronto, ON: TSAR Publications.

Koslin, Désirée G. 2008. “‘He Hath Couerd my Soule Inwarde’: Veiling in Medieval Europe and the Early Church.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 160–179. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kuhns, Elizabeth. 2003. The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns. New York: Doubleday Publishing.

Lafontaine, Laurene M. 2008. “Out of the Cloister: Unveiling to Better Serve the Gospel.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 75–89. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy and Bruce Ingham, eds. 1997. Languages of Dress in the Middle East. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press.

Macleod, Arlene Elowe. 1993. Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling, and Change in Cairo. New York: Columbia University Press.

Manolson, Gila. 1997. Outside/Inside: A Fresh Look at Tzniut. Southfield, MI: Targum Press.

McDonough, Sheila. 2003. “Perceptions of the Hijab in Canada.” In The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, edited by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough, 121–142. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.

McNamara, Jo Ann. 1985. A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries. New York: Harrington Park Press.

Mernissi, Fatima. 1975. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing.

Michelman, Susan. 1998. “Breaking Habits: Fashion and Identity of Women Religious.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 2(2): 165–192. http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/136270498779571095

Paldiel, Mordecai. 2006. Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans, and Reconciliation. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House.

Poll, Solomon. 1962. The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. New York: Schocken Books.

Razack, Sherene. 1998. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

———. 2008. Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Ruttenberg, Danya. 2009.“Toward a New Tzniut.” In The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism, edited by Danya Ruttenberg, 203–211. New York: New York University Press.

Schreiber, Lynne. 2003. Introduction to Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering, edited by Lynne Schreiber, 11–16. New York: Urim Publications.

———. 2003. “What is hair?” In Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering, edited by Lynne Schreiber, 17-33. New York: Urim Publications.

———. 2003. “Hide and Seek.” In Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering, edited by Lynne Schreiber, 150–159. New York: Urim Publications.

Schreier, Barbara A. 1994. Becoming American Women: Clothing and the Jewish Immigrant Experience, 1880–1920. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society.

Shaheed, Aisha Lee Fox. 2008. “Dress Codes and Modes: How Islamic is the Veil?” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 290–306. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Skeat, Walter W. 1972. “Veil.” In A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, by Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Thobani, Sunera. 2007. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Wallach Scott, Joan. 2010. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Zahedi, Ashraf. 2008.“Concealing and Revealing Female Hair: Veiling Dynamics in Contemporary Iran.” In The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, edited by Jennifer Heath, 250–265. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Zine, Jasmin. 2006. “Unveiled Sentiments: Gendered Islamophobia and Experiences of Veiling Among Muslim Girls in a Canadian Islamic School.” Equity & Excellence in Education 39(3): 239–252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10665680600788503

Zuhur, Sherifa. 1992. Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Published

2013-08-23

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Streib, H., & Hood, R. W. (2013). Modeling the Religious Field: Religion, Spirituality, Mysticism, and Related World Views. Implicit Religion, 16(2), 137-155. https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v16i2.133