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Visual Blasphemy: defamations and definitions

by John Harvey

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Profane images constitute the most extreme rupture between a theological and visual conception of God and one of the most potent forms of (anti-)religious representation. Visual blasphemy articulates concepts that are unthinkable for the believer. It may be designedly antagonistic and involve either a strategic transgression of normative codes and expectations of religious visualization or the deconstruction and recontextualization of acceptable religious images in such a way as to express ridicule and contempt. Visual blasphemy may also be inadvertent, arising from a profound conflict between the perceived significance of a religious image and the theological sensibilities of the percipient.

Thus it is both an absolute and a relative condition. The paper discusses the iconography of profanity, both as a construction aimed to defame God and disseminate anti-Christian ideology and as a contingent of theological contrariety. It seeks to establish a criteria for blasphemy informed by the historical and contemporary perspectives of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, jurisprudence, and legislation, and in contradistinction to the concepts of blasphemy in literature and common parlance. Visual material will be drawn from historical and contemporary art, film, and the websites of militant Satanist and anti-Christian groups.

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released May 4, 2021

Personnel: John Harvey.

Context: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion, San Diego, USA (Nov. 17–20, 2007).

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John Harvey Aberystwyth, UK

I’m a practitioner and historian of sound art and visual art, and Emeritus Professor of Art at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, UK. My research field is the sonic and visual culture of religion. I explore the sonic articulations of the Christian religion by engaging visual, textual, and audible sources, theological and cultural ideas, and systemic and audiovisualogical processes. ... more

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