José Rui Teixeira and Alex Villas Boas, CITER researchers, together with Marcos Lopes (UNICAMP) and Marcio Capelli (UMESP) organized the Dossier “Religion and contemporary Portuguese-language literatures”, published by the journal Estudos de Religião, one of the most important Brazilian journals renowned in the field of Religion Studies (Qualis A2). Art and religion relationship was complexed by art’s emancipation from religion, mainly because of the re-enchantment movement strongly assisted from the second half of the twentieth century, which produced an understanding of irreducible autonomy in both spheres. Such elements, as Karl-Josef Kuschel stands out, made new spiritual amalgams possible, going beyond the classical categories of modern religion and criticism. Some authors, as mexican poet and critic Octavio Paz, searched for poetry and religion common origin, avoiding the very belligerence of the first one against the second one as a modernity deliberate intention to create a “new sacred”. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that an idea of a subgenre is not postulated, for “religious literature”, which is otherwise limiting, enables the task for thinking different experiences of a spirituality codified in terms of an institutional religiosity. However, we seek for works about the role of portuguese-language literatures in the way they express religion issues in contemporary times, without necessarily being confused with a specific religious expression, although it may be related to them.

Estudos de Religião is an open access journal, and the article can be accessed here.