Page - 96 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

96 | Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 95–122 to weave, to braid.1 The object which is at the core of this article joins letters and threads in a unique way: it is a sampler from southern England, embroi- dered by Elisabeth Parker in the middle of the first half of the 19th century. It belongs to the textile collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (fig. 1). In the last decades, this unique object has attracted scholarly atten- tion. Among others, the British art historian Nigel Llewellyn and the North American cultural studies scholar Maureen Daly Goggin have reconstructed in detail the historical context in which the embroidered sampler was made.2 Inspired by their scholarly work, this article focuses on the relationship between text, materiality, and religion. More specifically, I am interested in the way the materiality of writing influences both meaning-making processes within a particular cultural setting and the reconstruction of religious prac- tices within the study of religion, the discipline I work in. In the last decades, materiality has become a key concept of cultural and religious studies, found at the core of theoretical and methodological debates as well as in historical and contemporary case studies.3 While it is not possible to offer an overview of this debate here, as we tackle a material analysis of Parker’s sampler, I would like to highlight that materiality has to be consid- ered more as a process than as an element of a mere material object or thing. Anne V. Golden summarises the significance of the analysis of materiality in reconstructing religious practices as follows: “In the intersection of religion, media, and communication, the term material culture implies a strong re- lationship between religious artefacts and human behaviour in a spiritual, communicative, and cultural context. The term causes researchers to analyse the multiple interactions that take place between religious object, the creator and/or consumer of the religious items, and the culture.”4 Following this approach to material culture, a material thing is always re- lated to an object but also to the practices of production and reception that are linked to it.5 In the case of our sampler, the object is a piece of embroi- dered linen fabric and at the same time a text. According to Jan Assmann, a 1 For the transformation of textus from a metaphor to a common word to indicate written texts see Assmann 2007. 2 Goggin 2002 and 2009; Llewellyn 1999. 3 See e. g. King 2010; Morgan 2010; Berger 2010; Promey 2014; Plate 2015; Kalthoff/Cress/Röhl 2016; Chidester 2018. 4 Golden 2010, 234. 5 For the different connotation of terms such as “thing”, “object”, and “matter” see e. g. Morgan 2011; Hahn/Eggert/Samida 2014 and Barad 2003.