Religion in Motion: The Identity and World-Creating Powers of Religious Action, with Sam Gill

This lecture rethinks religion from the ground up. Drawing on biology, philosophy, and decades of research and dance practice, Sam Gill argues that we are moving, whole organisms before we are divided into mind and body. He proposes that humans possess a biologically enabled capacity to hold together what we know to be different as if it were the same—a dynamic that underlies the powers of metaphor, masking, dancing, ritual action, symbol, and language. Through vivid examples from Hopi initiation, Javanese shadow puppetry and dance, and Navajo prayer ceremonials, Gill shows how religious actions create worlds, identities, and enduring cultural coherence.

Sam D. Gill is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work explores what it means to be human through the study of religion. He writes on religion theory, Indigenous traditions, dance, and technology, and won a 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award for The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith (2020).

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies.