Together with the previous workshops on 'Signs' and 'Scripture' the present conference aims at scrutinizing the notion of 'texture' as a guiding metaphor for the examination of religious phenomena. Textures might be described as contextualizations of scriptural processes that allow communication between diverse levels of life, connecting for example the material with the mental and the cultural sphere and vice versa. One might also describe the interaction of religious traditions as textural contextualizations which allow, form and execute contact phenomena of transfer and translation.
Textures are internal formative principles to be found within the material examined allowing its interpretation thus introducing a recursive formation which might be described in scientific meta-language. As such they generate the emergence of sense and trigger sensible behavior. Textures thus comprise manifest texts but cannot be reduced to them. One focus of the workshop is the material side of texture as to be found in the religious context.
