invitation

We write to invite your participation in Frequencies, a new web-based project to construct a collaborative genealogy of spirituality. We envision entries for Frequencies as fragments in a dynamic, large-scale portrait. An entry may be as short as 300 words or as long as 2,000 words. What comes to mind when you think of spirituality? Topics might include historical figures, material objects, geographic locations, texts, images, movements, or events. The attached project statement includes a list of potential, but hardly exhaustive, terms.

No matter the subject you select, the best entries will consider just how the spiritual works in and through the chosen object. This might include examinations of its use, presence, circulation, or production. It might further include considerations of how your subject coordinates with or contests narratives of capitalism, liberalism, aesthetics, racial or sexual politics. Or it might just be a vivid portrait of your reflexive encounter with this object in the world. Entries may take any number of rhetorical forms, including expository essay, historical footnote, or sonnet.

First and foremost, we invite your creative intelligence. We would be delighted to have you contribute to what we think will be an epic and wide-ranging collection.

Kathryn Lofton and John Lardas Modern