Research in Contemporary Religion

The authors of this volume investigate the analysis of visual sources and their indispensable role for understanding and interpreting religions, their symbol systems, and the wider traditions of which they are a part. A particular interest in this study is the focus on the methodological challenge of images from a comparative perspective. The common concern that ranges over all the contributions is the search for a methodological perspective where images may be analysed in a comprehensive way, with particular regard for the social, and wider intellectual settings, as well as the religious, in which the images are embedded. Accordingly, we seek to show that visual sources need to be interpreted from different angles. In the last decades, a broad range of publications has contributed to highlight the significance of images, and visual media in general, for understanding religious traditions, communities and discourses in both historical and contemporary perspective. In more recent research streams, focussing on visual media in religious traditions and symbol systems, various avenues have opened up and been explored focussing on the status of images and of the gaze of the viewer as central aspects. Furthermore, there are illuminating contributions dealing with the theoretical premises and settings with which to approach the visual as a central component of religion, on the one hand giving an overview of essential definitions and implications, on the other hand concentrating on specific techniques and/or media.

The publication of the Muhammad caricatures in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 caused a global controversy that erupted not only at the political and economic level, but also engulfed the media and had a significant impact on cultural tensions across international societies. This book aims to reflect on the so-called Danish cartoon controversy by focusing on the genre of caricature in order to consider how Muslims and elements of the Islamic tradition are represented in caricatures as the »other«. Monica Glavac commences with an historical overview of this artistic technique to understand how caricatures are characterized in Europe, where they originate from and how they developed. Historical examples are then studied to find out how Muslims and elements of the Islamic tradition were variously depicted. The historical perspective serves to embed the Muhammad cartoons and the resultant controversy in a broader cultural and historical context. Glavac thereby shows a possible way in which one can deal with a public phenomenon, such as the Danish cartoon controversy, from the perspective of the study of religion.