Religion, Nonreligion and the Sacred: Art and the Contemporary Rituals of Birth
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is excellent. It is well organized and easy to follow. I would only suggest that the work of Paul Ricoeur, in particular the "Symbolism of Evil." could be of use to your work.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments and I am happy that you enjoyed the article. I will look into Paul Ricoeur's "Symbolism of Evil."
Reviewer 2 Report
The article presents concrete examples/cases from diverse sources. This is the strength of the article. The weakness of the article is the lack of conceptual clarity. The article briefly touches on theories of the sacred in the middle of the article (line 253~). The article should have a section on the definition and the author's interpretation of the key concepts (ex. sacred) at the beginning.
It is also unclear why the author chose the cited cases and examples. It is best if the author articulates the selection criteria before presenting cases/examples. Otherwise, it appears as a random selection.
I suggest adding conceptual clarity to the article by adding necessary sentences and/or sections.
Author Response
Thank you very much for these helpful comments and I have made some revisions.
- The revised paper includes an additional sentence (lines 49-51) to explain why the cited examples have been chosen.
- For the theory of the sacred, the paper explains early on in the thesis paragraph that a discussion of defining the term is an integral part of the paper (lines 29-32). The paper then goes on to provide the reader with a succinct understanding of a theory of the sacred, defining it and describing how the term will be used in the context of the research (lines 258-304).
