A Creative Process
A Creative Process
This chapter begins with a further reflection on the relationships between perspective and depth, bringing in a third term: imagination. It hypothesizes on some of the imaginative processes entailed in the construction of religiohistorical objects, which are crafted pieces of writing that reveal the realities of religious subjects through the subjective visions of their authors—if scholars of religion are like artists creating art objects. The practice of interpretive writing on religion brings together important aspects of the neoclassical and romantic attitudes toward art. Successful writers manage to “communicate a vision” of their materials. This expression, however, is not exactly the self-expression of the romantic poet, which was valued as a usually exuberant outpouring of a unique creative genius. The vision expressed by the scholar instead needs visibly to reflect some outside realities, somehow to represent the religious worlds of others.
Keywords: imagination, religiohistorical objects, subjective vision, interpretive writing, outside realities
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