Asymptote of the Ineffable

Alterity is the phenomenological kernel of religion, and insofar as alterity is part of the structure of beingintheworld, 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 religions 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 cart. Applying these insights to contemporary events suggests that there is a sense in which political alterity is also a religious structure.