Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape by Robert A. Orsi (Editor)

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Synopsis

"Fascinating insights into modern urban religious practice make Orsi's collection a must-read." — Publishers Weekly

"The essays provide insight into the cultural creativity, reinterpretation of worship and religious ingenuity of city people over the last 50 years." — Library Journal

"At last, a major dissection of the great mystery in modern Americanlife — how religion and spirituality prospered amidst industrialization,urbanization, and rampant technological change after 1880!" — Jon Butler, Yale University

"Urban religion" strikes many as an oxymoron. How can religion thrive in the alienated, secular, fast-paced, and materialistic world of the modern, Western city? The authors in this collection believe that cities not only can provide the settings for religious expression, but also are material to the experiences which give rise to those religious expressions. In this book, they explore the distinctly urban forms of religious experience and practice that have developed in relation to the spaces, social conditions, and history of American cities.

Library Journal

Twentieth-century U.S. cities are the setting as Orsi (religious studies, Indiana Univ.) expands our understanding of religious life and sacred space through these compiled essays. Orsi provides an outline of the urbanization of America and the pluralism that resulted from diaspora nationalism set against the dynamic engagement of various religious traditions. As his selections show, city people live through their environment and create a distinct religious sense that is fluid and changing in terms of geography, architecture, and social issues. Karen McCarthy addresses the Haitian immigrants and their ability to recraft their Vodou religious in the middle of concrete jungles. Joanne Punzo Waghorne addresses the creation of the first Hindu Sri Siva-Vishnu Temple in Maryland and the associated problems in adapting the facility. Other essays address Afro-Cuban religions, Italian Harlem, the Japanese Presbyterian Church in Seattle, and the Church of the Open Air established by the Salvation Army. The essays provide insight into the cultural creativity, reinterpretation of worship and religious ingenuity of city people over the last 50 years. Recommended for large collections.--Leo Kriz, West Des Moines Lib., IA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Biography

Robert A. Orsi is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University and author of The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 and Thank You, St. Jude: Women's Devotions to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. He has taught at Fordham University at Lincoln Center and at the Universita degli Studi di Roma and has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Orsi's books have been awarded the Alpha Sigma Nu National Book Prize of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (1985); the American Catholic Historical Association's John Gilmary Shea Prize (1986); and the Merle Curti Award in American Social History from the Organization of American Historians (1998).

List of contributors: (CB will pass contributor info to Marketing as soon as it is complete)Wayne AshleyDavid H. Brown Karen McCarthy BrownMadeline DuntleyJack KugelmassJoseph SciorraThomas A. TweedJoanne Punzo WaghorneDiane Winston