The editors of the volume Religious Secrecy as Contact. Secrets as

Promoters of Religious Dynamics would like to invite contributions

concerned with any of the following areas: Islam, Tibet, Central Asia,

India, Shamanism (in Asia or Europe). *Contributions on other areas of

European and Asian religions would also be considered.* We are looking

for articles that explore the role of secrecy and secrets in situations

of religious contact. For further information please contact Anna Akasoy

(akasoy [at] gmx.net).



Description of Volume:



Religious Secrecy as Contact:Secrets as Promoters of Religious Dynamics



Editors: A. Akasoy, L. Di Giacinto,

G. Halkias, A. Müller-Lee, P. Reichling, K.M. Stünkel



The proposed volume focuses on

“strategies of secrecy” and their role in the history of religious

contacts, a neglected field of research in Religious Studies. It

comprises a collection of papers presented in a series of

interdisciplinary workshops and conferences on the subject of “religion

and secrecy” held at the Käte Hamburger Consortium “Dynamics in the

History of Religions” between 2008 and 2012. The contributions of the

volume analyse the phenomenon of „secretizing‟:



As MarkTeeuwen pointed out, secrecy ― „a form of religious practice in

its own right‟ ― refers to a certain process within a given social

situation where the secret functions in a certain institutional

framework (Teeuwen, Mark and Scheid, Bernhard, eds., The Culture of

Secrecy in Japanese Religion, New York: Routledge 2006, p. 4). The

secret itself may be replaced by ritualized secretism that is

independent of the content of the secret (Johnson, Paul

Christopher, Secret, Gossip, and Gods. The Transformation of Brazilian

Candomblé, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.3). The

volume challenges the traditional analysis that understands secret

merely as a social and epistemological device that prevents contact

between an „ingroup‟ and an „outgroup‟ and provides the means to cut

one‟s own tradition from external influences. The present volume will

rather build on Assmann‟s insights on secrecy as “interaktives

Geschehen”, because secrecy involves an interactive dimension which

fulfils an important function in cross-cultural contacts‟. (Aleida

Assmann, Jan Assmann, „Die Erfindung des Geheimnisses durch die

Neugier“, in: Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, eds., Schleier und Schwelle

III. Geheimnis und Neuzeit, München: Fink 1999, p. 8). Accordingly, the

general hypothesis of the volume is that secrets play a significant role

in the inter-religious and intrareligious exchange and all the essays

shall examine the function of secrets in examples of religious contacts.

While aspects of secrecy usually seem to play a role in religious

conduct, analysing the role of secrets within religious traditions

involves difficulties. Since, by definition, one cannot hope to grasp

„the secret‟ on the level of the object language, the field of possible

investigation is reduced to the functional and the linguistic field.

More precisely, secrecy can be analysed as a semantic structure that can

be identified and described phenomenologically. Hence, it is also not

necessary to assume that the terminology of secrecy should be translated

one to one across cultures. Secrets are by no means neutral or

indifferent notions in religious processes: They rather function as

privileged zones of contact. A secret might be described as a catalyst

for specific forms of communication since the elusive nature of secret

offers rich opportunities for translations from one religious tradition

into another and often the results are miscomprehensions, which are

harshly rejected by the old secret-keepers. In any case, secrets may

function as interfaces of inter-religious and intrareligious contact. As

such, they should be analyzed as a blank space that can be identified in

distinct ways and understood as a process of emptying conceptual content

in different linguistic contexts. Finally, because the content of

secrets cannot be determined and translations remain in flux, secrets

promote rather than prevent the concrescence of religious traditions.



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