Performing Religion — A Special Issue of Performance Matters

Religion and theater, religious studies and performance studies–these practices and fields share multiple, sometimes contentious, points of connection. From a content perspective, at least within theater studies, research on the relationship between religion and theater has often focused either on the possibility that plays evolved from liturgical practices or on the phenomenon of antitheatrical sentiment. Methodologically, performance studies inherits to an important degree its impetus to study off-stage role-playing, seeing, and self-representation from the interest in ritual that animated the collaborations between Victor Turner and Richard Schechner. Yet, despite the importance of religion as player in theater history and ritual theory as a resource within performance studies, scholarship on religious performance has occupied a relatively marginal position in the field. As Lance Gharavi argues in his excellent introduction to Religion, Theatre, and Performance: Acts of Faith (2012), the lack of readings and courses related to religion in the standard curriculum offered by graduate programs in theater and performance studies attests to this marginal status (5). The last decade, however, and especially the years between 2012-2014, have witnessed an exciting renewal of scholarly attention to the intersections between religion and performance, with edited collections by Gharavi and by Claire Maria Chambers, Simon W. du Toit, Joshua Edelman (2012), an Ecumenica special issue on “Critical Terms in Religion, Spirituality, and Performance” (2014), and monographs by Edmund Lingan (2014), John Fletcher, (2013) and Jill Stevenson (2013).

The current issue of Performance Matters builds on this momentum by gathering articles, essays, creative works, and field notes on the theme “Performing Religion.” Its contributors to the Articles section offer a medieval theory of religious emotion, a history of the immersive game “Romans and Christians” in Protestant youth camps, an analysis of the liturgical practices of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, and a study of Ignatius of Loyola’s influence on early modern French hagiographic drama. The Forum Section gathers reflection pieces on religion and theater as “folk categories,” on Trump’s evangelicals, on Jonathan Goodluck’s piety, and on the recuperation of religion in art history. Finally, the Materials Section features a video and script of Angela Latham’s original autoethnographic play Jesus Camp Queen, along with an artist reflection and reviews, followed by excerpts from Richard Schechner’s field notes on the Ramlila of Ramnagar.

We invite you to take a look!

Performance Matters
Vol 3, No 1 (2017): Special Issue: Performing Religion
Table of Contents
http://performancematters-thejournal.com/index.php/pm/issue/view/6

Editorial Notes
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Introduction: Performing Religion (1-6)
Joy Palacios

Articles
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Sacred Feeling: A Dramaturgy of Religious Emotion (7-18)
Donnalee Dox and Amber Dunai

Romans and Christians: Bearing Witness and Performing Persecution in Bible Camp Simulations (19-38)
Scott Magelssen and Ariaga Mucek

“I Name Myself in Power”: The Roman Catholic Womenpriests and the Performance of Relational Authority (39-61)
Claire Maria Chambers

Awakening Imagination: Glimpses of Ignatian Spirituality in Seventeeth-Century French Hagiographic Theatre (62-87)
Ana Fonseca Conboy

Forum
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Blaspheming Against Ourselves: Folk Categories in Religion and Theatre (88-93)
Lance Gharavi

Deep Stories of the Demonized: Empathy and Trump Evangelicals (94-102)
John Fletcher

Goodluck the Performer (103-111)
Ebenezer Obadare

Recuperating Religion in Art History: Contemporary Art History, Performance, and Christian Jankowski’s The Holy Artwork (112-115)
Karen Gonzalez Rice

Materials
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Jesus Camp Queen (116-131)
Angela J Latham