Lecture “Can Visual Culture Studies Contribute to Human Dignity? Protestant Missions and Image Practices.”

[Tomoe Steineck]

Dear all

With apologies for cross-posting, I would like to announce my lecture next week at SOAS, University of London:

“Can Visual Culture Studies Contribute to Human Dignity? Protestant Missions and Image Practices.”

The lecture analyses Edo-period religious images and common religiosity as visual agency, situating them within Protestant missionary knowledge and collecting in the context of high cultural imperialism, and asking how practices of tolerance shape historical and contemporary understandings of human dignity in relation to ownership and respect of images.

Sincerely,

Tomoë I. M. Steineck

Visiting Researcher, Lecturer

University of Zurich/ HIJAS Hosei University Tokyo

Forthcoming Publications:

• Protest Deities and the Logic of Images: Images as Epistemic Agents in Japanese Religion. Alternative Rationalities and Religious Practices in a Global Perspective. (Inaugural issue CAS-E). Brill, April 2026
• Negotiating Paradigms: Construing the Nexus of Mission, Collection, and Imperialist Agenda. Monography (in preparation)