FOR 2828: De/Sacralization of Text
Our research group basically assumes that there are certain texts that circulate within societies possessing a normative and identity-shaping character, whether for the society as a whole or for certain groups within it. Compared to other texts, we posit that there is a significant difference in authority and relevance attributed to them. Such texts are associated with various cultural and religious uses — e.g., interpretation, performance, citation, and attribution — through which their special status and truth claims are expressed and reified. We refer to these processes as sacralization. In addition to the more readily apparent examples of sacred writings, the canonical books of religious communities, we are also interested in sacralized writings in the context of literature, law, and politics.
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Just as all of these texts can achieve a special status, they may too lose some or all of their distinctiveness as relevant practices change or cease altogether, or when claims to authority stop being recognized under changing historical circumstances. It is the interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of these oppositional dynamics of sacralization and desacralization in different social, cultural, and religious contexts that constitutes the objective of this collaborative research project. Our practice-oriented theoretical approach aims to move beyond merely intuitive understandings of supposedly sacred or secular texts, which treat such categories as self-evident. We want to better understand the concrete reading practices and modes of use as well as specific institutional frameworks by which texts are sacralized or desacralized. In doing so, we are also attentive to subtle gradations and overlaps in sacralization and desacralization processes, which often complicate categorical demarcation between the sacred and the profane.