Buffalo Souljah
5th January 2010, 11:59
Introduction to a Semiotic Theory of Religion (http://www.naasr.com/semiotictheory.pdf)
This essay is by a friend of mine, Timothy Murphy, an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Included are some fragments of the essay, outlining the general theme of the work.
Abstract:
This work is a synopsis of an argument for a semiotic approach to theorizing
religion. The central argument combines Jonathan Z. Smith’s notion of “sacred
persistence” as the dynamic relationship between a canon and a hermeneute with
the work of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Mikhail
Bakhtin. The argument is that religion is a process of on-going semiotic construc-
tion and displacement wherein heremeneutes select paradigmatic elements to form
syntagmatic combinations. One of the aspects of this process of selection and
combination is what Bakhtin refers to as “the speech of the other”. Often, though
not always, this element of religious semiotica takes the form of an agon, or
contest. This work draws upon Foucault and Nietzsche to supplement Smith’s and
Bakhtin’s notion of the production of religious speech/interpretations by further
theorizing the concept of the agon. It is argued that this approach is an advance
upon both essentialist phenomenological approaches and inductive, explanatory
approaches. Religion, it is claimed, is best understood on the model of language,
and by means of analogous approaches used in the study of language and language
behaviors.Some highlights:
Every mark, every sign, every symbol, every text, then, bears the
impress of both moments of time as a structuring component. The
enunciation replies and anticipates a reply; essentially Janus-faced, it
looks in both directions of time at once.
As such, meaning is not simply produced by one side dominating the
other, but in the interstice as a product of the overall conflict, con-
frontation, encounter. There are always two terms to an enunciation,
and the relation between them can, at any time, be reversed.A somewhat clear elucidation of what semiotics is about:
As langue is to parole, specific texts manifest an
historical discourse, or many historical discourses to a greater or
lesser degree. The semiologist’s job is to delineate the common, inter-
textual discourses with historical and linguistic specificity. Once the
diachronic exegesis of a discourse, or a “braid” of discourses is delim-
ited, then the semiotician must analyze the internal structure of each
particular braid of discourse. Finally, the semiotician must trace out
the effects of the movement of an object of discourse between spe-
cific, bounded discursive formations, making an a priori assumption
neither of continuity nor of complete difference, but analyzing the spe-
cific structuring events in each movement, and consequently, the
specific effects of specific discourses.
When read against the background of the problem of coloni-
alism, Liberal theology’s nearly obsessive quest to rationally and
scientifically establish “das Wesen des Christentums” can be seen as a
permutation of colonial discourse. The colonized Other forms the
constitutive Other of this discourse. In its efforts to establish the
essence of religion generally, and the essence of Christianity in rela-
tion to religion, we find repeated the same kind of hierarchical and
Euro-centric constructs found elsewhere in the structures of colonial
discourse.
This essay is by a friend of mine, Timothy Murphy, an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Included are some fragments of the essay, outlining the general theme of the work.
Abstract:
This work is a synopsis of an argument for a semiotic approach to theorizing
religion. The central argument combines Jonathan Z. Smith’s notion of “sacred
persistence” as the dynamic relationship between a canon and a hermeneute with
the work of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Mikhail
Bakhtin. The argument is that religion is a process of on-going semiotic construc-
tion and displacement wherein heremeneutes select paradigmatic elements to form
syntagmatic combinations. One of the aspects of this process of selection and
combination is what Bakhtin refers to as “the speech of the other”. Often, though
not always, this element of religious semiotica takes the form of an agon, or
contest. This work draws upon Foucault and Nietzsche to supplement Smith’s and
Bakhtin’s notion of the production of religious speech/interpretations by further
theorizing the concept of the agon. It is argued that this approach is an advance
upon both essentialist phenomenological approaches and inductive, explanatory
approaches. Religion, it is claimed, is best understood on the model of language,
and by means of analogous approaches used in the study of language and language
behaviors.Some highlights:
Every mark, every sign, every symbol, every text, then, bears the
impress of both moments of time as a structuring component. The
enunciation replies and anticipates a reply; essentially Janus-faced, it
looks in both directions of time at once.
As such, meaning is not simply produced by one side dominating the
other, but in the interstice as a product of the overall conflict, con-
frontation, encounter. There are always two terms to an enunciation,
and the relation between them can, at any time, be reversed.A somewhat clear elucidation of what semiotics is about:
As langue is to parole, specific texts manifest an
historical discourse, or many historical discourses to a greater or
lesser degree. The semiologist’s job is to delineate the common, inter-
textual discourses with historical and linguistic specificity. Once the
diachronic exegesis of a discourse, or a “braid” of discourses is delim-
ited, then the semiotician must analyze the internal structure of each
particular braid of discourse. Finally, the semiotician must trace out
the effects of the movement of an object of discourse between spe-
cific, bounded discursive formations, making an a priori assumption
neither of continuity nor of complete difference, but analyzing the spe-
cific structuring events in each movement, and consequently, the
specific effects of specific discourses.
When read against the background of the problem of coloni-
alism, Liberal theology’s nearly obsessive quest to rationally and
scientifically establish “das Wesen des Christentums” can be seen as a
permutation of colonial discourse. The colonized Other forms the
constitutive Other of this discourse. In its efforts to establish the
essence of religion generally, and the essence of Christianity in rela-
tion to religion, we find repeated the same kind of hierarchical and
Euro-centric constructs found elsewhere in the structures of colonial
discourse.