Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Images at Work: The Material Culture of Enchantment

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Images can be studied in many ways--as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are
often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive--they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one
that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us.

Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and
recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans
create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents--human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual--become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in
visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always
describe.

Pages: 240

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: February 01, 2018

ISBN: 0190272112

ISBN 13: 9780190272111

Images at Work: The Material Culture of Enchantment

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Images can be studied in many ways--as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are
often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive--they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one
that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us.

Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and
recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans
create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents--human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual--become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in
visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always
describe.

Pages: 240

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: February 01, 2018

ISBN: 0190272112

ISBN 13: 9780190272111

More books from David Morgan

The Visual Culture of American Religions

3.7/5 ( ratings)

The Lure of Images: A history of religion and visual media in America

3.2/5 ( ratings)

The Thing about Religion: An Introduction to the Material Study of Religions

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Isdal Woman: A New Perspective

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman

Islam through Objects

4.6/5 ( ratings)

Space, Place and Religious Landscapes: Living Mountains

Dragons: Shorter Fiction of Leung Ping Kwan

The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice

Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production

Textual Amulets from Antiquity to Early Modern Times: The Shape of Words

Higher Education in Post-Communist States: Comparative and Sociological Perspectives (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society Book 190)

Higher Education in Post-Communist States: Comparative and Sociological Perspectives (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society)

Higher Education in Post-Communist States: Comparative and Sociological Perspectives (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society Book 190)

Sensational Piety: Practices of Mediation in Islamic and Pentecostal Movements in Abuja, Nigeria

Lehrbuch der Molekularen Zellbiologie (German Edition)

2019: The Second Coming

Acquaintances: The Space Between Intimates And Strangers (Sociology and Social Change)

Rate this book!

Write a review?