The essays themselves are fascinating, not least because they bring together both museum curators and religious studies scholars thinking aloud, hard, and in parallel, about the 'material' and 'religious' dimensions of the objects they are exhibiting.
Art and Christianity
This timely volume is a valuable set of essays exploring the relationship between religious material culture and the politics ... Read moreof display in museums. The essays deal primarily with South and East Asian objects, each delicately balancing theory with ethnography and history.
Frank J. Korom, Professor of Religion & Anthropology, Boston University, USA This book captures some of the many journeys made, and shifting roles played, by sacred objects when they are taken from their temples and shrines. They can become imperial trophies, scientific specimens, bland conscripts in multicultural narratives, stereotypes paraded to boost museum visits, respected ambassadors representing faiths, traditions or groups, commodities in the art market, and - perhaps - return to being intermediaries between the material and the spiritual. This book offers not a single argument, but a judicious mixture of appreciation and critique, scepticism and enthusiasm, history and philosophy. Beyond its clear relevance to religious and museum studies, it casts interesting light on one of the most important issues of our time, the public understanding of religious difference - and the role of museums as civic spaces in which difference can be explored.
Mark O'Neill, Director of Policy & Research, Glasgow Life, and former Director of Glasgow Museums, UK Show Less