B Meyer
Biographic Data
| ID | 14509 |
|---|---|
| NAME | B Meyer |
| GIVEN NAMES | B |
| FAMILY NAME | Meyer |
| SIGNATURE | MEYER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7186-7865 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 147 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Methodology and Metaphysics
Picturing Aura, Jeremy Stolow explains in the Introduction, “is about two things: auras and the practice of picture making” (2025, 2). The term “and” in this statement signals that he does not wish...
The Materiality of Secularity
The main argument put forward in this article is that, while both religion and secularity cannot be but material, it is important to acknowledge the materiality of secularity for two reasons. One, doing so allows the resort to materiality to be criticized and transcended as part of a politics of ousting manifestations of religions perceived as Other from a dominant perspective (as is the case with views of Islam in Western societies). Second, it …
Unpacking Missionary Collections
Christian missionary collections have contributed much to the development of the exhibitionary complex, but have received significantly less notice than imperial states using violence to acquire collections, and subsequent demands for restitution. This introductory essay argues that researching missionary collecting and exhibiting requires a broad approach to the materiality of collections, to recognize the multilayered biographies of artifacts, …
Spirits in the Museum
The question how to deal with artifacts in museums that have a religious provenance has been debated extensively with regard to Christianity and so-called “world religions”—also in this journal. Le
Consulting the things of the spirits: Evidencing unseen presences in missionary collections
Contributing to current efforts to grapple with museums' colonial legacies, this article takes the question of evidence as an entry point to unlock the multi-layered make-up of African spiritual artifacts in missionary collections. Focussing on Dutch and German missionary collections of legbawo and dzokawo from the Ewe region in Ghana and Togo, we analyze how such artifacts were subjected to "practices of evidencing" by multiple parties over a sp…
In-between: Studying Lived Plurality from the Interstice
What difference does it make to study interreligious encounters from the vantage point of materiality and which new insights can be acquired in this manner? As pointed out by the editors of this sp
Religious Repercussions in Hans Belting's Anthropology of Images
In the final chapter of his magnum opus Likeness and presence. A history of the image before the era of art (1994, German original 1990), Hans Belting signals that a crisis of the image occurred in
Hans Belting (1935-2023): "Images Beyond "The Era of Art
The idea to devote an In Conversation to the relevance of Hans Belting’s work for the study of images in a religious setting long preceded his death on 9 January 2023. He much appreciated the idea
Modalities of co-existence in madina, ghana
Enlightening religion: Light and darkness in religious knowledge and knowledge about religion
This introduction elaborates how the relationship between religion and light can and should be addressed as a key theme for the critical study of religion. It synthesizes the principal arguments of the six articles collected in this special journal issue and locates them in a broader theoretical framework, focussing especially on the politics of knowledge production
The Secular Sacred: Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion
This book explores how religious emotions and national sentiment become entangled across the world, and the ways in which sacrality and secularity mutually inform, enforce, and spill over into each other, with examples from Barzil, Nigeria, the Netherlands, and beyond.
Religion as Mediation
Why and how is it productive to conceptualize religion as mediation? In this article, I 1) rehearse the intellectual trajectory of the move from studying the implications of the adoption of new mass media into religious practices to a broader idea of religion as a practice of mediation; 2) address some criticisms raised with regard to the concept of religion-as-mediation from my position in the interface of anthropology and religious studies; 3) …
Remapping our mindset: Towards a Transregional and Pluralistic Outlook
The future of the study of religion/s must be actively envisioned and pursued. In the aftermath of the deconstruction of ‘religion’ and the idea of ‘secularization’ as imbued with a Western teleology, it is necessary to rethink and reconfigure the study of religion/s against a global horizon. In this essay I propose that we should move out of the unproductive Religious Studies-Theology binary and frame our work in the midst of the humanities. A n…
Aberration of Cultures: A Study of Distortion of Akan Cultures in Kumawood Movies in Ghana
Mediação e Imediatismo: Formas Sensoriais, Ideologias Semióticas E a Questão Do Meio
Tomando como ponto de partida o paradoxo de que imediatismo não é anterior, mas antes um produto damediação, esse artigo argumenta que a negociação de tecnologias mediáticas recentes é um elemento-chave paraa transformação da religião. Invocada para autorizar a experiência de poderes espirituais como imediatos e reais, amídia tende a 'desaparecer' ou se tornar 'hiper-aparente' no ato da mediação. Argumento que entender a mídiacomo intrínseca à re…
The Icon in Orthodox Christianity, Art History and Semiotics
In order to understand current dynamics of religious diversity, a focus on the tangible presence of religion and the co-existence of new and longstanding religious buildings, sites and artifacts in urban spaces is a fruitful starting point. Launching the notion of iconic religion, this introduction seeks to contribute to developing a scholarly framework for the nexus of religion and the city from a spatial, material, aesthetic and semiotic angle.…
Forum Rethinking Euro-Anthropology: Forum
A remarkable fact of recent developments in Science and Technology Studies is that anthropologists have begun to study the laboratories of natural scientists but have \nnot turned the anthropological gaze onto themselves. Until ethnographic studies of the functioning of anthropology departments in France, Germany, Finland, Japan \nand other countries are done, ‘symmetrical anthropology’, as Latour (2013: 290) calls it, remains unrealised. If the …
Picturing the Invisible
An understanding of religion as a practice of mediation has great potential to open up new methods and theories for a critical study of religion. Leading beyond the privileged medium of the text, this understanding approaches religion as a multi-media phenomenon that mobilizes the full sensorium. The central point of this article is that forms of visual culture are a prime medium of religion, and studying them offers deep insights into the genesi…
The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790-1945)
Journal Article The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790–1945) Get access The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790–1945). By J.A.S. Grenville. London and New York: Routledge. 2012. 334 pp. £100 (hardback); £24.99 (paperback). Beate Meyer Beate Meyer Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German Histor…
Pentecostalism and Neo-Liberal Capitalism: Faith, Prosperity and Vision in African Pentecostal- Charismatic Churches
Focusing on the phenomenal popularity of Pentecostal-CharismaticChurches (PCCs) in Africa, this article addresses the apparent consonancebetween the rise of this type of Christianity and the spread of neo-liberalcapitalism. It is argued that Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic can serve as asource of inspiration for grasping this phenomenon, but should not beemployed as a blue print because this would blind us to certain aspects ofPCCs that markedly dig…
Powerful Pictures: Popular Christian Aesthetics in Southern Ghana
If images are life-forms, and objects are the body they animate, then media are the habitats or ecosystems in which pictures become alive. (Mitchell 2005: 198
Media and the senses in the making of religious experience: An Introduction
This introduction places the articles presented in this special issue in a broader frame by outlining current issues in the study of religious material and visual culture. It argues for an understanding of religion as a practice of mediation to which media, understood as "sensational forms" are intrinsic. Such sensational forms are central to construing specific religious subjectivities, generating religious experience, and calling upon the divin…
Materializing religion
Money, Power and Morality: Popular Ghanaian Cinema in the Fourth Republic
The focus of this paper is the expansive potential of popular culture in Ghana, in particular the ways in which it encroaches upon political discourse and debate. A well-known case to illustrate this expansive potential is the former vice president Arkaah’s public accusation in December 1995 that
Moral Discourses and Public Spaces in the Fourth Republic
In 1992 a historic watershed was reached with the formal inauguration of the Fourth Republic. As the very name would suggest, this represented above all a political turning point. It ushered in an era of renewed competition for political office and of comparative freedom of expression, as
Make a complete break with the past: Erinnerung und postkoloniale Modernität im Diskurs ghanaischer Pfingstkirchen1
Picturing the Invisible
An understanding of religion as a practice of mediation has great potential to open up new methods and theories for a critical study of religion. Leading beyond the privileged medium of the text, this understanding approaches religion as a multi-media phenomenon that mobilizes the full sensorium. The central point of this article is that forms of visual culture are a prime medium of religion, and studying them offers deep insights into the genesi…
Media and the senses in the making of religious experience: An Introduction
This introduction places the articles presented in this special issue in a broader frame by outlining current issues in the study of religious material and visual culture. It argues for an understanding of religion as a practice of mediation to which media, understood as "sensational forms" are intrinsic. Such sensational forms are central to construing specific religious subjectivities, generating religious experience, and calling upon the divin…
Religion as Mediation
Why and how is it productive to conceptualize religion as mediation? In this article, I 1) rehearse the intellectual trajectory of the move from studying the implications of the adoption of new mass media into religious practices to a broader idea of religion as a practice of mediation; 2) address some criticisms raised with regard to the concept of religion-as-mediation from my position in the interface of anthropology and religious studies; 3) …
Powerful Pictures: Popular Christian Aesthetics in Southern Ghana
If images are life-forms, and objects are the body they animate, then media are the habitats or ecosystems in which pictures become alive. (Mitchell 2005: 198
Mediação e Imediatismo: Formas Sensoriais, Ideologias Semióticas E a Questão Do Meio
Tomando como ponto de partida o paradoxo de que imediatismo não é anterior, mas antes um produto damediação, esse artigo argumenta que a negociação de tecnologias mediáticas recentes é um elemento-chave paraa transformação da religião. Invocada para autorizar a experiência de poderes espirituais como imediatos e reais, amídia tende a 'desaparecer' ou se tornar 'hiper-aparente' no ato da mediação. Argumento que entender a mídiacomo intrínseca à re…
Enlightening religion: Light and darkness in religious knowledge and knowledge about religion
This introduction elaborates how the relationship between religion and light can and should be addressed as a key theme for the critical study of religion. It synthesizes the principal arguments of the six articles collected in this special journal issue and locates them in a broader theoretical framework, focussing especially on the politics of knowledge production
Materializing religion
Money, Power and Morality: Popular Ghanaian Cinema in the Fourth Republic
The focus of this paper is the expansive potential of popular culture in Ghana, in particular the ways in which it encroaches upon political discourse and debate. A well-known case to illustrate this expansive potential is the former vice president Arkaah’s public accusation in December 1995 that
Modalities of co-existence in madina, ghana
Consulting the things of the spirits: Evidencing unseen presences in missionary collections
Contributing to current efforts to grapple with museums' colonial legacies, this article takes the question of evidence as an entry point to unlock the multi-layered make-up of African spiritual artifacts in missionary collections. Focussing on Dutch and German missionary collections of legbawo and dzokawo from the Ewe region in Ghana and Togo, we analyze how such artifacts were subjected to "practices of evidencing" by multiple parties over a sp…
Remapping our mindset: Towards a Transregional and Pluralistic Outlook
The future of the study of religion/s must be actively envisioned and pursued. In the aftermath of the deconstruction of ‘religion’ and the idea of ‘secularization’ as imbued with a Western teleology, it is necessary to rethink and reconfigure the study of religion/s against a global horizon. In this essay I propose that we should move out of the unproductive Religious Studies-Theology binary and frame our work in the midst of the humanities. A n…
Forum Rethinking Euro-Anthropology: Forum
A remarkable fact of recent developments in Science and Technology Studies is that anthropologists have begun to study the laboratories of natural scientists but have \nnot turned the anthropological gaze onto themselves. Until ethnographic studies of the functioning of anthropology departments in France, Germany, Finland, Japan \nand other countries are done, ‘symmetrical anthropology’, as Latour (2013: 290) calls it, remains unrealised. If the …
Aberration of Cultures: A Study of Distortion of Akan Cultures in Kumawood Movies in Ghana
The Icon in Orthodox Christianity, Art History and Semiotics
In order to understand current dynamics of religious diversity, a focus on the tangible presence of religion and the co-existence of new and longstanding religious buildings, sites and artifacts in urban spaces is a fruitful starting point. Launching the notion of iconic religion, this introduction seeks to contribute to developing a scholarly framework for the nexus of religion and the city from a spatial, material, aesthetic and semiotic angle.…
Brine Shrimp: A Convenient General Bioassay for Active Plant Constituents
A method, utilizing brine shrimp (Artemia salina Leach), is proposed as a simple bioassay for natural product research. The procedure determines LC (50) values in microg/ml of active compounds and extracts in the brine medium. Activities of a broad range of known active compounds are manifested as toxicity to the shrimp. Screening results with seed extracts of 41 species of Euphorbiaceae were compared with 9KB and 9PS cytotoxicities. The method i…
Make a complete break with the past: Erinnerung und postkoloniale Modernität im Diskurs ghanaischer Pfingstkirchen1
African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective
Satan Steps out from the Shadows Religion and Politics in Africa
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Money, Power and Morality: Popular Ghanaian Cinema in the Fourth Republic
The focus of this paper is the expansive potential of popular culture in Ghana, in particular the ways in which it encroaches upon political discourse and debate. A well-known case to illustrate this expansive potential is the former vice president Arkaah’s public accusation in December 1995 that
Moral Discourses and Public Spaces in the Fourth Republic
In 1992 a historic watershed was reached with the formal inauguration of the Fourth Republic. As the very name would suggest, this represented above all a political turning point. It ushered in an era of renewed competition for political office and of comparative freedom of expression, as
Powerful Pictures: Popular Christian Aesthetics in Southern Ghana
If images are life-forms, and objects are the body they animate, then media are the habitats or ecosystems in which pictures become alive. (Mitchell 2005: 198
Media and the senses in the making of religious experience: An Introduction
This introduction places the articles presented in this special issue in a broader frame by outlining current issues in the study of religious material and visual culture. It argues for an understanding of religion as a practice of mediation to which media, understood as "sensational forms" are intrinsic. Such sensational forms are central to construing specific religious subjectivities, generating religious experience, and calling upon the divin…
Materializing religion
Pentecostalism and Neo-Liberal Capitalism: Faith, Prosperity and Vision in African Pentecostal- Charismatic Churches
Focusing on the phenomenal popularity of Pentecostal-CharismaticChurches (PCCs) in Africa, this article addresses the apparent consonancebetween the rise of this type of Christianity and the spread of neo-liberalcapitalism. It is argued that Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic can serve as asource of inspiration for grasping this phenomenon, but should not beemployed as a blue print because this would blind us to certain aspects ofPCCs that markedly dig…
The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790-1945)
Journal Article The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790–1945) Get access The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization (1790–1945). By J.A.S. Grenville. London and New York: Routledge. 2012. 334 pp. £100 (hardback); £24.99 (paperback). Beate Meyer Beate Meyer Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German Histor…
Forum Rethinking Euro-Anthropology: Forum
A remarkable fact of recent developments in Science and Technology Studies is that anthropologists have begun to study the laboratories of natural scientists but have \nnot turned the anthropological gaze onto themselves. Until ethnographic studies of the functioning of anthropology departments in France, Germany, Finland, Japan \nand other countries are done, ‘symmetrical anthropology’, as Latour (2013: 290) calls it, remains unrealised. If the …
Picturing the Invisible
An understanding of religion as a practice of mediation has great potential to open up new methods and theories for a critical study of religion. Leading beyond the privileged medium of the text, this understanding approaches religion as a multi-media phenomenon that mobilizes the full sensorium. The central point of this article is that forms of visual culture are a prime medium of religion, and studying them offers deep insights into the genesi…
The Icon in Orthodox Christianity, Art History and Semiotics
In order to understand current dynamics of religious diversity, a focus on the tangible presence of religion and the co-existence of new and longstanding religious buildings, sites and artifacts in urban spaces is a fruitful starting point. Launching the notion of iconic religion, this introduction seeks to contribute to developing a scholarly framework for the nexus of religion and the city from a spatial, material, aesthetic and semiotic angle.…
Aberration of Cultures: A Study of Distortion of Akan Cultures in Kumawood Movies in Ghana
Mediação e Imediatismo: Formas Sensoriais, Ideologias Semióticas E a Questão Do Meio
Tomando como ponto de partida o paradoxo de que imediatismo não é anterior, mas antes um produto damediação, esse artigo argumenta que a negociação de tecnologias mediáticas recentes é um elemento-chave paraa transformação da religião. Invocada para autorizar a experiência de poderes espirituais como imediatos e reais, amídia tende a 'desaparecer' ou se tornar 'hiper-aparente' no ato da mediação. Argumento que entender a mídiacomo intrínseca à re…
The Secular Sacred: Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion
This book explores how religious emotions and national sentiment become entangled across the world, and the ways in which sacrality and secularity mutually inform, enforce, and spill over into each other, with examples from Barzil, Nigeria, the Netherlands, and beyond.
Religion as Mediation
Why and how is it productive to conceptualize religion as mediation? In this article, I 1) rehearse the intellectual trajectory of the move from studying the implications of the adoption of new mass media into religious practices to a broader idea of religion as a practice of mediation; 2) address some criticisms raised with regard to the concept of religion-as-mediation from my position in the interface of anthropology and religious studies; 3) …
Remapping our mindset: Towards a Transregional and Pluralistic Outlook
The future of the study of religion/s must be actively envisioned and pursued. In the aftermath of the deconstruction of ‘religion’ and the idea of ‘secularization’ as imbued with a Western teleology, it is necessary to rethink and reconfigure the study of religion/s against a global horizon. In this essay I propose that we should move out of the unproductive Religious Studies-Theology binary and frame our work in the midst of the humanities. A n…
Enlightening religion: Light and darkness in religious knowledge and knowledge about religion
This introduction elaborates how the relationship between religion and light can and should be addressed as a key theme for the critical study of religion. It synthesizes the principal arguments of the six articles collected in this special journal issue and locates them in a broader theoretical framework, focussing especially on the politics of knowledge production
Modalities of co-existence in madina, ghana
Religious Repercussions in Hans Belting's Anthropology of Images
In the final chapter of his magnum opus Likeness and presence. A history of the image before the era of art (1994, German original 1990), Hans Belting signals that a crisis of the image occurred in
Hans Belting (1935-2023): "Images Beyond "The Era of Art
The idea to devote an In Conversation to the relevance of Hans Belting’s work for the study of images in a religious setting long preceded his death on 9 January 2023. He much appreciated the idea
In-between: Studying Lived Plurality from the Interstice
What difference does it make to study interreligious encounters from the vantage point of materiality and which new insights can be acquired in this manner? As pointed out by the editors of this sp
The Materiality of Secularity
The main argument put forward in this article is that, while both religion and secularity cannot be but material, it is important to acknowledge the materiality of secularity for two reasons. One, doing so allows the resort to materiality to be criticized and transcended as part of a politics of ousting manifestations of religions perceived as Other from a dominant perspective (as is the case with views of Islam in Western societies). Second, it …
Sociology (14 works) · Art (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · History (11 works) · Aesthetics (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Religious Tourism and Spaces (8 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (7 works) · Anthropology (7 works)