Within ongoing processes of pluralisation across Europe religious icons are becoming increasingly important. Religious icons mediate between religious concepts and objects and materialize religion in the public space. In this two session panel we will consider to what extent such icons, in the form of sacred buildings and sites, clothing, public events etc, generate social imaginaries about different religions and their co-existence. In what ways do they invoke or feed into debates about the place of religion in ‘secular’ public life, and the management ofreligious diversity? Do they stimulate positive or negative encounters? Examining religious icons in relation to the encounter between different religious traditions and between the religious and the secular, the panel will discuss how ‘iconicity’ is denoted or generated, the extent to which icons express or encapsulate encounter, and how icons may impact on and shape public space.
With:
Birgit Meyer: Iconic Religion: An Introduction
Susanne Lanwerd (CERES): Investigating Berlin Sites
Daan Beekers: Material Conversions: Iconicity and the Politics of re-allocated Church buildings in Amsterdam
Steph Berns: Bring out your Dead: The Role of Burials in the Making of Iconic Sites in London
