Seminars

With more than 400 extant manuscripts in vernacular languages and Latin, together with countless block books and incunables, the Speculum humanae salvationis is one of the most successful works of devotional literature in late medieval Europe. A typological framework forms its basic structure, juxtaposing New Testament episodes about the lives of Christ and Mary (that is, “antitypes”) with corresponding Old Testament episodes which were understood as their prefigurations (that is, “types”). Speculum manuscripts visualize the idea of a typological relation between the Old and the New Testament by arranging pictorial elements and script in conventionalized layouts. Their multigraphic concept is explicitly tailored to the needs of a lay audience and their religious teachers. Using different examples of the visualization of hell, I will discuss the Speculum’s twofold objective of presenting basic theological knowledge while facilitating hermeneutic interpretation with the help of both verbal and visual means. Focusing on vernacular German translations, with glances at the Latin tradition, I will explore three aspects: firstly, the interplay of pictorial and verbal visualization meant to guide processes of understanding, interpreting, and contemplating Scripture; secondly, the effects of visual organization on these processes; and thirdly, the status of material images rather visualizing abstract motifs than depicting narrative episodes. By focusing on these three aspects, my presentation will provide new insights into the role of multigraphic artefacts in religious reading practices.

Historically in Chinese traditions of Buddhism, the monastic community has stood as the guarantor of orthodoxy while independent lay Buddhism has operated under the specter of heresy. The valorization of texts in Buddhist modernism, however, has created new opportunities for lay Buddhism even as old suspicions and challenges linger. This talk examines the Maitreya Lodge, a small working class lay community in Taiwan under the leadership of a charismatic autodidact and ex-gangster. The canon looms large at the Lodge as a source of cultural capital with which to stake claims to orthodoxy and distinguish itself from the larger religious field. Yet the inaccessible character of the Chinese Buddhist canon makes acquiring that capital challenging. This talk will investigate the role of scripture in the Lodge’s strategies of legitimation and unpack the mediations by which a group of adults with limited education have become conversant in advanced Buddhist philosophy.