Diagramming as a Method of Mapping Protestant Subjectivities: Three Examples

This paper thinks diagrammatically about how to visualize Protestant subjects and subjectivities. Thinking about subjects through diagrams allows us to ask: How are subjects made in and through their spatial existence? Rather than starting from the classic trope of Protestant interior individualism, I argue diagramming is a method that can help us shift toward a deeper understanding of Protestant subjects-in-the-world. I especially build on recent scholarship on diagrams as methods of mapping in cultural anthropology, and I extend this into religious studies. When we think about subjects through the lens of space, it becomes clear the Protestant tradition incorporates a multitude of types of cartographic subjectivities. The paper discusses three example diagrams of Protestant subjectivity: the subject as concentric circles; the subject as a relational ensemble; and the subject as a friction-filled coupling.