Events

This conference is organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and part of the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics (www.isac-research.org).

This conference investigates the material forms through which Asian Catholics manifest their liturgical concerns, ecological commitment, and institutional presence, and how these material translations and negotiations participate in the making of contemporary Asia.

Historically, Asian Catholics have built outstanding hospitals, schools, and churches which have reshaped the visual landscape and material flows of Asian social spaces (Arimura 2014, Coomans 2018, Hudd 2019). Often, Asian Catholics and their objects have questioned the ways in which their surrounding society related to and conceptualized the material world. During the multi-secular Chinese rite controversy (1582-1936), Catholics have challenged the ways East Asian authorities materially perform a wide range of ritual practices which structured their political order (Mungello 1994).

But under different circumstances, Asian Catholics have also integrated and preserved indigenous understandings of the material world and its agency (Bovensiepen 2018). In parallel, Catholic networks and institutions have played a major role in introducing and circulating new knowledge and techniques about physics, botanic, agriculture, chemistry and medicine which have questioned the ways Asian societies relate to the material environment (Galipeau 2021).

Today, Asian Catholics continue to materially translate their social presence, ecological concerns, economic efforts, and religious commitments. Through the erection of new sites of devotions, cemeteries, and public institutions, Asian Catholics mobilize particular materials and designs to make their priorities tangible. Echoing to Global Catholicism conversations and elaborating on their own locally-informed cultural resources, Asian Catholics join actions to prevent climate change and preserve the environment (Palmer 2015). And the material experience, concerns, and sensibilities of Asian Catholics have far reaching influences – they participate in the contemporary production of Asian societies and Global Catholicism.

In dialogue with the material turn in religious studies and the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics, this hybrid conference probes conceptions of Catholic materialities in contemporary Asia (Fleming 2014; Reinhardt 2016). While considering the relevance of geography, history, politics, and economy in the study of the material ideologies of Asian Catholics (Chambon 2020), the conference seeks to question the ways in which Asian Catholics participate in the material production of contemporary Asia and world Catholicism. Without essentializing and homogenizing Asian Catholic beliefs and practices, the conference will investigate ways to conceptualize Catholic cultural productions and materialities and their relations with other Asian religious traditions, economic flows, and political ideologies.

CONFERENCE CONVENOR

Dr Michel CHAMBON
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid conference has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.