Asymptote of the ineffable - Embodiment, alterity, and the theory of religion

Alterity is the phenomenological kernel of religion, and insofar as alterity is part of the structure of being-in-the-world, religion is an inevitable feature of human existence. This essay elaborates these ideas by juxtaposing traditional phenomenology of religion with contemporary theorizing about alterity. The argument moves from an opening reflection about the "origin" of religion and the presumed interiority of religious experience to a critique that modifies the phenomenologists' understanding of religion's object as a majestic and wholly "Other" with the notion of an intimate alterity grounded in embodiment. The intimate alterity of the gendered self as embodied otherness is illustrated in a series of ethnographic moments that pinpoint the elementary structure of alterity described by the term "ecart." Applying these insights to contemporary events suggests that there is a sense in which political alterity is also a religious structure.