Franziska Metzger

Stefan Tertünte

In an innovative, pluri-disciplinary approach this volume focuses on how memory in Sacred Heart devotion is created, promulgated and transformed. The volume with contributions by historians, theologians, religious scientists and art historians links the dimension of memory to that of iconography, language, body and ritual practices and sheds light on adaptations, transfers, contestations and variations in a perspective of longue durée from the late Middle Ages to the present. The first part of the volume develops central axes of analysis, which are specifically investigated in the two following parts. The contributions of part two intertwine perspectives of cultural, social and art history focusing on the multi-layered creation, public presence and political usage, diversity and variations of Sacred Heart iconography and devotion in a long-term perspective. In-depth analyses centre on late medieval northern Italy, early modern France and 18th-century Switzerland (Eidgenossenschaft), on France from the 1950s to the 1980s, and on Indonesia in the 20th and 21st centuries. In a dynamic way, the third part combines systematic theological, philosophical and didactic reflexions on the Sacred Heart with a focus on imagination, embodiment, spirituality and memory.

Memory, Body, Image, Text - Continuities and Discontinuities

Sacred Heart Devotion

Jan De Maeyer

Urs Altermatt

A broad perspective on the role of religious institutes in social and cultural practices This volume examines the cultural contribution of religious institutes, men and women religious, and their role in the constitution of Catholic communities of communication in different European countries (England, Germany, Liechtenstein, the Low Countries, the Nordic Countries, Switzerland). The articles focus on social and cultural history by comparing both discourses and cultural and social practices, as well as examining international networks and cultural transference. How did religious institutes function as cultural elites in the production and mediation of knowledge, ideologies, cultural codes, and practices? What kind of discursive and operational strategies did they use to help construct and propagate social Catholicism, ultramontanism, and confessionalism, and to establish and promote the Catholic communication system? What were the central mechanisms in the production of knowledge and how were they incorporated within identity politics? The volume also takes a broad perspective on the role of religious institutes in the production and propagation of religious, cultural, and social practices, and in the socialisation of the Catholic population. The focus is on cultural practices, on the transmission and transformation of attitudes, and on the rites and customs in everyday religious and social practices.

Franziska Metzger

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