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 divine by appealing to, and tuning, the senses and the body in ways peculiar to the specificity of religious traditions.