Heavenly acts: aspects of performance through an interdisciplinary lens

在世纪后半叶和21世纪的前十年，一系列学科的大量思想和著作都致力于探索人类经验和活动中可以被定义为以绩效为导向的领域。这种早期的研究已经发展到一定程度，现在有一些不同但相关的线索，代表不同的学科，不同的环境和一系列的方法论方法，所有这些都旨在处理性能及其在人类生活和社会中的显着性。一个共同的主题，将所有这些线索联系在一起，那就是表演和宗教所形成的联系。早期人类学的目光往往集中在仪式和典礼上。最近的活动探讨了表演作为一种人类和社会活动（无论表演是音乐，语言，戏剧，身份导向还是仪式化）如何告知宗教经验和活动。全球化进程的影响极大地推动了这一活动，因为文化、信仰和语言在当今时代的动态和流动环境中相互相遇。每一条线索都在自己的领域中有一个既定或发展中的地位，拟议的网络旨在聚集来自广泛学科的研究人员，他们都在追求学术研究的路线，这些学术研究集中在广泛定义的，“表演”。这一新兴群体包括社会语言学家、民族音乐学家、教育学家、人类学家、社会心理学家以及宗教研究和戏剧研究学者，他们认为表演和表演的各个方面对于他们对宗教虔诚实践的描述是至关重要的，也是非常广泛的。现在就这一专题采取比以往更广泛的跨学科办法是及时和适当的。因此，这个国际网络将首次聚集在这些不同领域的学者，分享他们在各自领域的见解和专业知识，探索这些学科之间显然存在的创新合作与协作的潜力，寻求发展新的理论和方法，在一个跨，纪律的方式，并作出重要贡献的知识有关的表现在宗教背景下。此外，由于这些不同的研究人员在不同的信仰传统内部和之间开展研究，该网络具有明确的信仰间和跨信仰层面，对于将利用该网络推进其自身在信仰间合作、理解、协作和文化丰富方面的议程的非学术受益者来说，这具有直接和明显的利益和重要性。这一网络将力求：分享其具体的研究结果和见解;突出共同感兴趣的领域;建立共同的理解和原则;最重要的是，打破迄今为止阻碍这种共同理解的学科界限;形成重要的跨学科做法，使之团结一致，而不是分裂。我们还打算研究网络有一个显着的公众面孔提供一种手段，表演者，观众和从业人员互动，并与学术研究人员联系，以及展示自己的做法。在实践中，我们设想为期两年的资金将支持和促进一些研讨会（包括座谈会），讲习班，面向公众的展示活动，学术交流（包括出版物）以及创建在线资源以展示网络及其研究。其目的是使该网络今后能够更好地申请进一步的资金，以开展实质性的跨学科研究。

In the second half of the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twenty first, a substantial amount of thought and writing in a range of disciplines has been devoted to exploring areas of human experience and activity that can be defined as performance-oriented. This early research has evolved to the extent that there are now a number of distinct but related threads in evidence that represent different disciplines, diverse settings and a range of methodological approaches all purporting to treat performance and its salience in human life and society. A common theme uniting all these threads is the nexus formed by performance and religion. Early anthropological gaze was often on ritual and ceremony. More recent activity explores how performance as a human and social activity (whether that performance is musical, linguistic, theatrical, identity-oriented or ritualised) informs and is informed by religious experience and activity. This activity has been fuelled significantly by the impact of globalising processes as cultures, faiths and languages encounter one another in dynamic and fluid settings in the present age.Each of these threads has either an established or developing position in its own field and the proposed network seeks to gather researchers from a wide range of disciplines all of whom are pursuing lines of academic enquiry that converge around, broadly defined, 'performance'. This emerging group of sociolinguists, ethnomusicologists, educationists, anthropologists, social psychologists and scholars of religious studies and theatre studies understand performance and aspects of performance as central or as important to their accounts of religious devotional practices, again very broadly defined. It is now timely and appropriate that a much wider cross-disciplinary approach to this topic is established than has happened hitherto. This international network will, therefore, for the first time, gather scholars researching in these different areas to share the insights and expertise they have of their own fields, to explore the potential there evidently is for innovative cooperation and collaboration across these disciplines, to seek to develop both new theory and methodology in a trans-disciplinary manner and to make an important contribution to knowledge about performance in religious contexts. Furthermore, with these different researchers carrying out their studies within and across a variety of faith traditions, the network has an explicit inter- and cross-faith dimension that is of immediate and obvious interest and importance to non-academic beneficiaries who will use the network to further their own agendas in respect of inter-faith cooperation, understanding, collaboration and cultural enrichment. The contribution to social cohesion and cultural understanding in this respect is potentially significant.This network will seek to: share its particular findings and insights; highlight mutual areas of interest; establish common understandings and principles; crucially, break down those disciplinary boundaries which have hitherto hampered such common understandings; and forge important trans-disciplinary practices that unify and align rather than separate and divide. We also intend the research network to have a significant public face providing a means for performers, audiences and practitioners to interact and link with academic researchers as well as showcase their own practices. In practical terms, we envisage the funding, which is for two years, will support and facilitate a number of seminars (including a colloquium), workshops, public-facing showcasing events, academic exchanges (including publications) and the creation of an online resource to showcase the network and its research. It is intended that the network will consequently be better placed to apply for further funding to develop substantive trans-disciplinary research in the future.