“This talk explores a particular class of embodied experiences: somatic inversions. Somatic inversions are experiences in which dimensions of human embodiment that usually remain in the tacit background of action and perception are brought to the experiential foreground. These kinds of practically cultivated experiences of inversion enable and encourage attributions of religious significance, making purportedly religious phenomena present to the senses and thus open to further engagement, exploration, and elaboration. Drawing on examples from Eastern Orthodox fasting and Theravada Buddhist meditation practices, the talk discusses methodological possibilities and challenges in the ethnographic study of somatic inversions and religious experience.”
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