Spatialising Practices: Theory, Text, Practice Towards a Redescriptive Companion to Graeco-Roman Antiquity – A Response
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Gerhard van den Heever in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper is a response to the Spatialising Practices panel that was organised under the auspices of the Greco-Roman Religions Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 2012. In the paper I respond to three foci represented in the presentations, namely spatiality theory, narrative space, and spatial practices. Overall the argument is made that conceptions of space arose already earlier in the 20th century with the rise of phenomenology, but that spatiality theories proper were epiphenomena of the emergence of cultural studies since the middle of the 20th century. It is argued that space is not so much an object of study and description but rather that space is a tool of analysis. Moreover, the essentially activist and political character of spatiality theory should continue to infuse studies of religion and space.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Akkach Samer Cosmology And Architecture In Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading Of Mystical Ideas 2005 New York, N.Y. State University of New York Press
-
Anderson Jon Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces 2010 London; New York, N.Y. Routledge
-
Balch David L & Weissenrieder Annette Contested Spaces: Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament 2012 Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 285 Tübingen Mohr Siebeck
-
Ball Philip Universe of Stone 2009 San Francisco, Calif. HarperCollins
-
Barnes Trevor & Gregory Derek Reading Human Geography. The Poetics and Politics of Inquiry 1997 London/New York, N.Y. Arnold Arnold Readers in Geography
-
Bauman Zygmunt “Happiness in a Society of Individuals.” Soundings. A Journal of Politics and Culture 2008 Spring 38 19 28 Online: http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/register.php?r=journals/soundings/articles/03%20s38%20bauman.pdf.
-
Bendemann Reinhard von & Tiwald Markus Das frühe Christentum und die Stadt 2012 Stuttgart Verlag W. Kohlhammer Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament. Zehnte Folge Heft 18, der ganzen Sammlung Heft 198
-
Berquist Jon L. “Theories of Space and Construction of the Ancient World” presented at the AAR/SBL Annual Meetings, Boston, November 20, 1999. No pages. Online: http://www.gunnzone.org/constructs/berquist.htm.
-
Berquist Jon L. & Camp Claudia V. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces 2008 London/New York, N.Y. T & T Clark
-
Blomley Nicholas Cane Peter & Conaghan Joanne “Space/spatiality.” The New Oxford Companion to Law n.d. Oxford Oxford University Press No pages. Cited 17 June 2013. Online: http://0-www.oxfordreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/view/10.1093/acref/9780199290543.001.0001/acref-9780199290543-e-2055?rskey=54j5D7&result=2&q=spatiality.
-
Buckley R. Philip Thompson Kevin & McBree “Personality of Higher Order. Husserlian Reflections on the Québec Problem.” Phenomenology of the Political 2000 Dordrecht Kluwer Academic 105 120 Contributions to Phenomenology
-
Cerbone David R. Understanding Phenomenology 2006 Durham Acumen Understanding Movements in Modern Thought
-
De Certeau Michel Rendall Steven F. The Practice of Everyday Life 2002 Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif University of California Press
-
Clegg Stuart “Review of John Allen, Lost Geographies of Power.” Area 2006 38 1 113 114 Online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20004509?origin=JSTOR-pdf.
-
Cusack Carole M. Invented Religions. Imagination, Fiction and Faith 2010 Farnham; Burlington, Vt. Ashgate Ashgate New Religions
-
Depraz Natalie “The Phenomenological Reduction and the Political.” Husserl Studies 2006 12 1 1 17
-
Dreyfus Hubert L. Guignon Charles B. & Guignon Charles B. “Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology, and Politics.” The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger n.d. 2nd ed. Cambridge Cambridge University Press 345 372 Cited 20 June 2013. Online: http://0-universitypublishingonline.org.oasis.unisa.ac.za/cambridge/companions/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9781139001106&cid=CBO9781139001106A017.
-
Elden Stuart “Between Marx and Heidegger: Politics, Philosophy and Lefebvre’s The Production of Space.” Antipode 2004 36 1 86 105
-
Elden Stuart Mapping the Present: Heidegger, Foucault and the Project of a Spatial History 2002 London/New York, N.Y. Continuum
-
Ettlinger Nancy & Bosco Fernando “Thinking Through Networks and Their Spatiality: A Critique of the US (Public) War on Terrorism and Its Geographic Discourse.” Antipode 2004 36 2 249 271 Cited 17 June 2013. Online: http://0-onlinelibrary.wiley.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00405.x/abstract.
-
Flacks Richard Ritzer George “New Left.” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology 2007 Oxford Blackwell No pages. Cited 11 November 2013. Online: DOI: 10.1111/b.9781405124331.2007.x.
-
Foucault Michel Miskowiec Jay “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 1986 16 1 22 27
-
Gallagher Shaun Dreyfus Hubert L. & Wrathall Mark A. “The Intrinsic Spatial Frame of Reference.” A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism 2006 Cited 17 February 2014 Oxford Blackwell 346 355 Online: http://0-www.blackwellreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/subscriber/uid=303/tocnode?id=g9781405110778_chunk_g978140511077827.
-
Georgi Dieter The City in the Valley. Biblical Interpretation and Urban Theology 2005 Atlanta, Ga. Society of Biblical Literature
-
Gill John “Giddens Trumps Marx but French Thinkers Triumph.” Times Higher Education 2009 March 26 Cited 23 February 2014 No pages. Online: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/giddens-trumps-marx-but-french-thinkers-triumph/405925.article.
-
Hall Stuart “Life and Times of the First New Left.” New Left Review 2010 Cited 14 November 2013 no. 61 II 177 196 Online: http://newleftreview.org/II/61/stuart-hall-life-and-times-of-the-first-new-left.
-
Harvey David A Brief History of Neoliberalism 2005 Oxford; New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press
-
Harvey David A Companion to Marx’s Capital 2010 London Verso
-
Harvey David Paris, Capital of Modernity 2013 Abingdon; New York, N.Y. Routledge
-
Harvey David Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution 2012 London Verso Books
-
Harvey David Social Justice and the City 2010 Atlanta, Ga. University of Georgia Press
-
Harvey David Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography 2001 Abingdon; New York, N.Y. Routledge
-
Harvey David Spaces of Hope 2000 Berkeley, Calif.; London University of California Press
-
Harvey David The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change 1989 Oxford; Malden, Mass Blackwell
-
Harvey David The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism 2011 London Profile Books
-
Harvey David The New Imperialism 2003 Oxford; New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press Clarendon Lectures in Geography and Environmental Studies
-
Harvey David “The Right to the City.” New Left Review 2008 September-October 53, no. n.p. Cited 23 June 2013. Online: http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city.
-
Harvey David The Urban Experience 1989 Baltimore, Md.; London Johns Hopkins University Press
-
Heidegger Martin “Bauen Wohnen Denken.” Vorträge und Aufsätze 1959 2 Pfullingen Neske
-
Heidegger Martin Holzwege 1980 6 Frankfurt a. M. Klostermann durchges. Aufl.
-
Heidegger Martin Off the Beaten Track 2002 New York Cambridge University Press
-
Hobsbawm Eric J. & Ranger Terence O. The Invention of Tradition 1983 Cambridge Cambridge University Press Past and Present Publications
-
Hockenos Paul “Release of Heidegger’s ‘Black Notebooks’ Reignites Debate Over Nazi Ideology.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 2014 February 24 Cited 25 February 2014 No pages. Online: http://chronicle.com/article/Release-of-Heidegger-s/144897/.
-
Husserl Edmund Nenon Tom & Sepp Hans Rainer Aufsätze und Vorträge 1922–1937 1989 Husserliana 27 Dordrecht Kluwer Academic
-
Husserl Edmund Kern Iso Zur Phenomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil. 1905–1920. Zweiter Teil. 1921–1928. Dritter Teil. 1929–1935. 1973 Husserliana 13–15 The Hague Nijhoff
-
Ijsseling Samuel “Foucault with Heidegger.” Man and World 1986 19 413 424
-
Kieckhefer Richard Theology in Stone: Church Architecture From Byzantium to Berkeley 2004 New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press
-
Kilde Jeanne Halgren Sacred Power, Sacred Space. An Introduction to Christian Architecture and Worship 2008 New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press
-
Kilde Jeanne Halgren When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America 2002 New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press
-
Knott Kim “From Locality to Location and Back Again: A Spatial Journey in the Study of Religion.” Religion 2009 39 2 154 260
-
Knott Kim “Spatial Theory and the Study of Religion.” Religion Compass 2008 Cited 19 June 2013. 2 6 1102 1116 Online: DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00112.x/abstract.
-
Knott Kim The Location of Religion. A Spatial Analysis 2005 London Equinox
-
Lakoff George & Johnson Mark Metaphors We Live By 2003 2nd ed. Chicago University of Chicago Press
-
Lewis James R. & Hammer Olav The Invention of Sacred Tradition 2007 Cambridge; New York, N.Y. Cambridge University Press
-
Lincoln Bruce Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars. Critical Explorations in the History of Religions 2012 Chicago, Ill./London University Of Chicago Press
-
Lincoln Bruce Religion, Empire, and Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib 2007 Chicago, Ill.; London University of Chicago Press
-
Mayhew Susan “Spatiality.” A Dictionary of Geography 2009 Cited 17 June 2013 Oxford Oxford University Press No pages. Online: http://0-www.oxfordreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/view/10.1093/acref/9780199231805.001.0001/acref-9780199231805-e-2907?rskey=54j5D7&result=1&q=spatiality.
-
Milchman Alan & Rosenberg Alan Foucault and Heidegger: Critical Encounters 2003 Contradictions 16 Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press
-
Miller Toby Miller Toby “Chapter 1. What It Is and What It Isn’t: Introducing . . . Cultural Studies.” A Companion to Cultural Studies 2005 Cited 11 November 2013 Oxford Blackwell 1 19 Online: DOI: 10.1111/b.9781405141758.2005.00002.x.
-
Moran Dermot Introduction to Phenomenology 2000 London; New York, N.Y. Routledge
-
Oakes Timothy & Price Patricia L. The Cultural Geography Reader 2008 London Routledge
-
Prieto Eric “Geocriticism Meets Ecocriticism: Bertrand Westphal and Environmental Thinking.” Épistémocritique. Littérature et Savoirs 9 Automne 2011 (2012). No pages. Cited 14 June 2013. Online: http://www.epistemocritique.org/spip.php?article238&lang=fr.
-
Rutherford Jonathan “The Culture of Capitalism.” Soundings. A Journal of Politics and Culture 2008 Spring 38 8 18 Online: http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/register.php?r=journals/soundings/articles/02s38rutherford.pdf.
-
Schneider Ulrich J. Kleiner Marcus S. “Foucault und Heidegger.” Michel Foucault. Eine Einfuhrung in Sein Denken 2001 Frankfurt/New York, N.Y. Campus 224 238
-
Sheppard Eric “The Spatiality of The Limits to Capital.” Antipode 2004 Cited 17 June 2013 36 no. 3 470 479 Online: DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00426.x/abstract
-
Spiegelberg Herbert The Context of the Phenomenological Movement 1981 Phaenomenologica 80 The Hague Nijhoff
-
Spiegelberg Herbert The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction 1982 Phaenomenologica 5/6 Dordrecht; Norwell, Mass.: Kluwer Academic
-
Spillman Lyn Cultural Sociology 2002 Blackwell Readers in Sociology 6 Malden, Mass Blackwell Publishers
-
Stewart Eric C. “New Testament Space/Spatiality.” Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 2012 Cited 18 June 2013 42 no. 3 139 150 Online: http://btb.sagepub.com/content/42/3/139.
-
Tally Robert T. Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies 2011 New York, N.Y. Palgrave Macmillan
-
Tally Robert T. Spatiality 2013 Abingdon Routledge The New Critical Idiom
-
Tally Robert T. “This Space that Gnaws and Claws at Us. Foucault, Cartographics, and Geocriticism.” Épistémocritique. Littérature et Savoirs 9 no. Automne 2011 (n.d.). No pages. Cited 14 June 2013. Online: http://www.epistemocritique.org/spip.php?article234&lang=fr.
-
Weinrich Harald Sprache in Texten 1976 Stuttgart Klett
-
Westphal Bertrand Tally Robert T. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces 2011 New York Palgrave Macmillan
-
Young Julian Guignon Charles B. & Guignon Charles B. “The Fourfold.” The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger n.d. Cited 20 June 2013 2nd ed. Cambridge Cambridge University Press 373 392 Online: http://0-universitypublishingonline.org.oasis.unisa.ac.za/cambridge/companions/author.jsf?name=Julian+Young.
-
2
Shaun Gallagher, “The Intrinsic Spatial Frame of Reference,” in Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 346–55, [cited 17 February 2014]. Online: http://0-www.blackwellreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/subscriber/uid=303/tocnode?id=g9781405110778_chunk_g978140511077827.
-
8
Gerhard van den Heever, “Undoing the Sleights of Hand. Prophets and Scholars – Two Mythic Discourses,” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 63, no. 3 (2007): 959.
-
10
Toby Miller, “Chapter 1. What It Is and What It Isn’t: Introducing . . . Cultural Studies,” in Companion to Cultural Studies (ed. Toby Miller; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 1–19, [cited 11 November 2013]. Online: DOI: 10.1111/b.9781405141758.2005.00002.x.
-
15
Nicholas Blomley, “Space/spatiality,” New Oxford Companion to Law (ed. Peter Cane and Joanne Conaghan; Oxford: Oxford University Press, n.d.), n.p. [cited 17 June 2013]. Online: http://0-www.oxfordreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/view/10.1093/acref/9780199290543.001.0001/acref-9780199290543-e-2055?rskey=54j5D7&result=2&q=spatiality.
-
16
Lyn Spillman, ed., Cultural Sociology (Blackwell Readers in Sociology 6; Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).
-
17
Trevor Barnes and Derek Gregory, eds., Reading Human Geography. The Poetics and Politics of Inquiry (Arnold Readers in Geography; London/New York, N.Y.: Arnold, 1997).
-
18
Jon Anderson, Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces (London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2010); Timothy Oakes and Patricia L. Price, eds., The Cultural Geography Reader (London: Routledge, 2008).
-
19
In biblical studies see Eric C. Stewart, “New Testament Space/Spatiality,” Biblical Theology Bulletin. Journal of Bible and Culture 42, no. 3 (2012): 139–50, [cited 18 June 2013]. Online: http://btb.sagepub.com/content/42/3/139.; Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, eds., Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces (London; New York, N.Y.: T & T Clark, 2008) as well as the other volumes in this series.
-
20
Jeanne Halgren Kilde, Sacred Power, Sacred Space. An Introduction to Christian Architecture and Worship (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2008), and Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2002); Philip Ball, Universe of Stone (San Francisco, Calif.: HarperCollins, 2009); Richard Kieckhefer, Theology in Stone: Church Architecture From Byzantium to Berkeley (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Samer Akkach, Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (New York, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2005). For an overview of the reception of Lefebvre and spatiality theory in religious studies, see Kim Knott, “Spatial Theory and the Study of Religion,” Religion Compass 2, no. 6 (2008): 1102–16, [cited 19 June 2013]. Online: DOI:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00112.x/abstract; Kim Knott, “From Locality to Location and Back Again: A Spatial Journey in the Study of Religion,” Religion 39, no. 2 (2009): 154–260; Kim Knott, The Location of Religion. A Spatial Analysis (London: Equinox, 2005).
-
23
A reference to Eric Sheppard, “The Spatiality of The Limits to Capital,” Antipode 36, no. 3 (2004): 470–79, [cited 17 June 2013]. Online: DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00426.x/abstract.
-
24
A reference to Stuart Clegg, “Review of John Allen, Lost Geographies of Power,” Area 38, no. 1 (2006): 113–14, Online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20004509?origin=JSTOR-pdf.
-
26
Susan Mayhew, “Spatiality,” Dictionary of Geography. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), n.p. [cited 17 June 2013]. Online: http://0-www.oxfordreference.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/view/10.1093/acref/9780199231805.001.0001/acref-9780199231805-e-2907?rskey=54j5D7&result=1&q=spatiality.
-
27
John Gill, “Giddens Trumps Marx but French Thinkers Triumph,” Times Higher Education, March 26, 2009, n.p. [cited 23 February 2014]. Online: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/giddens-trumps-marx-but-french-thinkers-triumph/405925.article.
-
29
David Harvey, Social Justice and the City (Atlanta, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2010); David Harvey, The Urban Experience (Baltimore, Md.; London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford; Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1989); David Harvey, Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography (Abingdon; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2001); David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Clarendon Lectures in Geography and Environmental Studies; Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2003); David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2005); David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism (London: Profile Books, 2011); David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Capital (London: Verso, 2010); David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso Books, 2012); David Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity (Abingdon; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2013); David Harvey, Spaces of Hope (Berkeley, Calif.; London: University of California Press, 2000).
-
35
Martin Heidegger, “Bauen Wohnen Denken,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze (vol. 2; Pfullingen: Neske, 1959).
-
40
As Heidegger averred in Heidegger, “Bauen Wohnen Denken,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze, 2: it is characteristic of contemporary technicalistic thinking to rent asunder the elements of the Fourfold, thereby rendering space in the sense of spatium, the distance between, which along with extensio, signalled in Western thinking the measurability of things.
-
55
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. Steven F. Rendall; Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif: University of California Press, 2002), especially the chapter “Spatial Stories,” 117–130, here 117. For a discussion of the application of spatiality theory and De Certeau to biblical narrative, see Gerhard van den Heever, “Space, Social Space, and the Construction of Christian Identity in First Century Asia Minor,” Religion & Theology 17, no. 3&4 (2010): 205–43.
-
60
Bruce Lincoln, Religion, Empire, and Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 655 | 67 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 137 | 0 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 43 | 2 | 0 |
Spatialising Practices: Theory, Text, Practice Towards a Redescriptive Companion to Graeco-Roman Antiquity – A Response
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Gerhard van den Heever in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This paper is a response to the Spatialising Practices panel that was organised under the auspices of the Greco-Roman Religions Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 2012. In the paper I respond to three foci represented in the presentations, namely spatiality theory, narrative space, and spatial practices. Overall the argument is made that conceptions of space arose already earlier in the 20th century with the rise of phenomenology, but that spatiality theories proper were epiphenomena of the emergence of cultural studies since the middle of the 20th century. It is argued that space is not so much an object of study and description but rather that space is a tool of analysis. Moreover, the essentially activist and political character of spatiality theory should continue to infuse studies of religion and space.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 655 | 67 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 137 | 0 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 43 | 2 | 0 |
