The following question has long been discussed in the study of religion: do specifically and uniquely religious emotions exist, or are religious emotions the result of attributing religious meaning to ‘ordinary’, everyday feelings? The classics differed on this, as we will discover discussing the ideas of William James, Rudolf Otto, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Gerardus van der Leeuw. We will also introduce newer approaches to the problem and look at different emotions - both individual (such as ecstasy) and collective (effervescence) in terms of their ability to generate, construct and reinforce religious experiences. We will also examine different religious cultures concerning how they encourage the expression of emotion and foster certain emotions over others. The primary material organising our discussions will be drawn from a recent innovative study by Gerrit Lange: Naiṇī mātā – Cobra Mum: Unearthing and Enacting the Feelings of Nine Himalayan Hindu Goddesses (De Gruyter 2025).
- Kursleiter/in: Dominika Motak