Gender and Postsecularity in Knowledge Production and Visual Culture

Essays exploring the intersections of gender and religion in postsecular knowledge production and visual culture.

During the last three decades, religious practices have gained increased visibility on a global scale, while the concept of secularity—and its relationship to religion—has become an object of intense interdisciplinary debates internationally. 

While the secular and the religious previously had marginalized positions within the academic field of gender studies, we can now observe a growing interest in religion and spirituality within this area of study, as well as gender-based activism.

This publication features essays by scholars in gender and religious studies that collectively reflect upon and develop interdisciplinary and transregional ideas about the intricate dynamics of secularity, religiosity, and gender.

The texts explore the entanglements and borders of religions and secularities in everyday life, as well as in art, culture, and knowledge production. Situated in an understanding of religion as both a category of thought and a marker of identity, this book considers new approaches to exploring the dynamic relationships between religiosity, secularity, and gender.

Copublished by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.Table of Contents

• 1 Sabine Grenz and Doris Guth, Introduction: Gender and Postsecularity in Visual Culture and Knowledge Production
• 2 Elke Pahud de Mortanges, Icon Meets Icon: On the Intersection between Religious Visual Cultures and Gender Performance in Postsecular Art and Fashion
• 3 Mariecke van den Berg, Crumbs, Masks, and Crosses: Exploring the Limits of the Iconic
• 4 Susanne Lanwerd, Fashion, Religion and Serendipity
• 5 Sophia Rose Arjana, The Veil in Popular Culture: Colonialism and Commodification
• 6 Kim Knibbe, The Challenge of Religion and Spirituality: From Secularist to Postsecular Knowledge Production
• 7 Nella van den Brandt, Sabine Grenz, Konstanze Hanitzsch, Eline Huygens, Maki Kimura, Mia Liinason, and Olga Sasunkevich , Religion, Spirituality and Gender beyond Dichotomies

Sabine Grenz is (assistant) professor for interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Vienna, where she also serves as head of the Gender Research Office (Referat Genderforschung).

Doris Guth is (assistant) professor for Gender Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her current research interests are queer-feminism in contemporary art, visual culture and art in early modern times: queering religion, love as cultural practice, art and activism, university as a political field of gender.

Boka En is currently completing their PhD on knowledge politics in LGBTIQ* movements at the University of Vienna.

Fatma Uysal studied theater, film and media studies at the University of Vienna (Bachelor) and media culture and art theories at the University of Arts Linz (Master) and received her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Doctorate).