Beyond Karbala: New Approaches to Shiʿi Materiality and Material Religion

Beyond Karbala examines material and multi-sensorial expressions of Shiʿi Islam in diverse, understudied demographic and geographic contexts. It engages with conceptual debates in religious studies, material religion, anthropology of religion, and sociology of religion, and makes several propositions that push the frontiers of religious studies and scholarship on material religion. The contributions presented in this volume demonstrate how material 'things' and less-thing-like materialities make the praesentia and potential of the sacred tangible, cultivate intimate relations between human and more-than-human beings, and act as tangible links and gateways to the Elsewhere and Otherworldly. The volume posits that materialities of religion are integral to processes of heritagization shaped by competing actors involved in the construction and canonization of religious--in this case, Shiʿi--heritage.