This collection evolved out a two-day conference called ‘Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts’ held at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at The Australian National University in November 2005. We would like to thank the ANU E Press board and the collection’s reviewers for their suggestions and feedback which have helped shape and polish the collection. Adam Art Gallery, Éditions Typo and Denise Boucher, kindly gave us for permission for extensive quotations, and Cathy de Monchaux and the estate of Ian Breakwell gave permission to reproduce images of their artwork. We would also like to thank the staff of the Centre for Cross Cultural Research, Dr Kevin White, and the many volunteers from around the ANU, for their contribution to the success of the conference.

This is the second volume from a series of five conferences and edited collections on the theme ‘Negotiating the Sacred’. The first conference, Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, was held at the ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in 2004, and published as an edited collection by ANU E Press in 2006. Other conferences in the series have included ‘Religion, Medicine and the Body’ (ANU, 2006), ‘Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum’ (ANU, 2007), and ‘Governing the Family’ (Monash University, 2008).