Imagining Religion: An Image Schematic Approach to Cultural Cognition

• In Event: 3184 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 08. Mental Processes

Abstract

Recent insights from the cognitive sciences have led many sociologists to consider the how largely unconscious, “practical” cognitions work with conscious, “discursive” cognitions to influence human subjectivity and action. While studies have increasingly analyzed models, metaphors, and embodied practices as a way of accessing practical cognitions, limited consideration has been given to the neurological and cognitive structures beneath these modes of cognition. This article incorporates findings about these structures to develop an “image schematic” analytical approach for reconstructing cultural cognition. Drawing on interviews with American adults from a variety of religious backgrounds, I uncover the image schemas that structure their understandings of how religion operates in their lives. I show how shifting analytical focus from language symbols to prelinguistic knowledge structures contributes to our understandings of how culture works to influence subjectivity and action.

Author

• Michael Rotolo, University of Notre Dame