Table Of ContentProfane
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The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous
support of Bentley University.
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Profane
Sacrilegious Expression
in a Multicultural Age
edited by
Christopher S. Grenda,
Chris Beneke, and David Nash
Foreword by
Martin E. Marty
university of california press
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University of California Press
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University of California Press, Ltd.
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© 2014 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Profane : sacrilegious expression in a multicultural age /
edited by Christopher S. Grenda, Chris Beneke, David
Nash.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-27722-9 (cloth, alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-520-95822-7 (electronic)
1. Blasphemy. 2. Swearing. I. Grenda, Christopher S.
bl65.b54P76 2014
179′.5—dc23 2014000733
Manufactured in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support
environmentally responsible and sustainable printing
practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures
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and meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Foreword ix
Martin E. Marty
Introduction: On the Modern Confl uence of Blasphemy,
Free Expression, and Hate Speech 1
Christopher S. Grenda, Chris Beneke, and David Nash
part one. creating space for sacrilegious
expression 25
1. T hick-Skinned Tolerance: Satire, the Sacred, and the Rise
of the Modern 27
Christopher S. Grenda
2. T he Productive Obscene: Philip Roth and the
Profanity Loop 57
Jacques Berlinerblau
3. D efaced: The Art of Blaspheming Texts and Images in
the West 82
David Lawton
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vi | Contents
part two. sacrilege and democratic
development 117
4. B lasphemy and Free Thought in Jacksonian America:
The Case of Abner Kneeland 119
Paul Finkelman
5. S ecular Blasphemies: Symbolic Offense in Modern
Democracy 141
Robert A. Yelle
part three. civility, the sacred, and
human rights 167
6. M uslim Political Theology: Defamation, Apostasy,
and Anathema 169
Ebrahim Moosa
7. P rotesting Sacrilege: Blasphemy and Violence in
Muslim-Majority States 189
Ron E. Hassner
8. T he Indonesian Blasphemy Act: A Legal and
Social Analysis 223
Asma T. Uddin
9. P rofound Offense and Religion in Secular Democracies:
An Australian Perspective 249
Elizabeth Burns Coleman
10. Blasphemy versus Incitement: An International
Law Perspective 281
Jeroen Temperman
Afterword: Blasphemy beyond Modernism 315
David Nash
List of Contributors 335
Index 339
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Illustrations
figures
3.1. Chris Ofi li, The Holy Virgin Mary / 84
3.2. Myra Hindley / 86
3.3. Maurizio Cattelan, HIM / 88
3.4. Alexander Kosolapov, This Is My Body / 91
3.5. Alexander Kosolapov, This Is My Blood / 91
3.6. Alan Schechner, Self Portrait at Buchenwald: It’s the
Real Thing / 92
3.7. Alan Schechner, Bar Code to Concentration Camp Morph / 94
3.8. Alan Schechner, The Legacy of Abused Children: From
Poland to Palestine / 96
3.9. Theo van Gogh, still from Submission / 97
3.10. Gérard Garouste, Passage (Autoportrait) / 102
tables
7.1. Occurrence of cartoon riots in Muslim-majority states / 190
7.2. Cartoon protests and riots in states with signifi cant
Islamist movements / 207
vii
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Foreword
martin e. marty
Blasphemers, profaners, and producers of the sacrilegious are to be
found in most cultures, especially those that hold religion in high regard.
Readers of this book will soon learn that attacks on and undercuttings
of religions acquire many names, usually in terms of what they oppose,
and what they oppose changes so often that the attackers are usually
very busy people.
Because I am a historian of religions, I had to ask why the editors and
authors gave me the privilege of helping to introduce their volume. We
scholars of religion don’t usually employ infl ammatory words such as
blasphemy or profaneness, instead preferring abstract terms to deal with
such phenomena. Secularization had long been one such term, perhaps
because it sounds neutral. Yet while it is still at home in some scholarly
discourse today, it almost always gives harbor and encouragement not
merely to nonreligion but also to whatever might subvert religion.
The authors in this collection venture far from the conventional
boundaries of the study of religions. They do so in pursuing the logic of
their respective disciplines as well as in crossing disciplinary boundaries
as their subjects and contexts demand. When I began work in this fi eld
three score years ago, one of its key areas was described as a dialectic of
belief and unbelief. Ever since I began to publish, “unbelief” has been a
specialty of mine. It showed up in a doctoral dissertation, later spruced
up and published as The Infi del: Freethought and American Religion
(Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1961) and tidied up still further as The
ix
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