My paper explores the audiovisual design of videos by contemporary Muslim preachers. I hope to offer a broader perspective on this emerging field that considers the complexity of audiovisual material. I propose audiovisuality as a conceptual complement to existing research that allows us to understand the audiovisual mediations of contemporary Muslim preachers as intentional and complex communicative propositions. These - like other practices of preaching and a variety of other social practices - are part of and structure the negotiation of religious beliefs, norms, and values. The epistemological interest of this text therefore concerns the ensemble of (in)audible and (in)visible elements that fashion audiovisual practices of preaching. An analysis of these elements, I argue, helps to explore the ways in which audiovisual mediations enable preachers to participate in the above discourse and shape their audiences’ understanding of their faith and how Islam should be lived, interpreted, and proclaimed.

Bio:

Christoph Günther currently holds a Heisenberg position for Islamic Studies at the Department of Religious Studies / Universität Erfurt. He has a background in Islamic Studies, History, and Arabic. His current research focuses on the ways in which contemporary Muslim preachers design their audiovisual mediations and how Muslim practitioners engage with such videos and images in the course of their daily religious and media practices. He is the author of Entrepreneurs of Identity: The Islamic State’s Symbolic Repertoire (Berghahn Books, 2022) and co-editor of Jihadi Audiovisuality and its Entanglements: Meanings, Aesthetics, Appropriations (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) and Disentangling Jihad, Media and Political Violence (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).