Table of Contents

Prescript: The Religious Uses of Benjamin i Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations used ix List of Illustrationsx Introduction: Creative Aesthetics Creating Religion 1 Chapter One: Aesthetics (I): From the Body to the Mind and Back 22 Chapter Two: Allegorical Aesthetics 59 Chapter Three: Working Art: The Aesthetics of Technological Reproduction 138 Chapter Four: Aesthetics (II): Building the Communal Sense 209 Bibliography 244

About the Author

S. Brent Plate is Assistant Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University has published widely on religion and visual culture, film, and aesthetics. His edited collections include the forthcoming Religion and WorldCinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making (2003) and Religion, Art, and Visual Culture: A Cross-CulturalReader (2002).