The privilege of being banal: art, secularism, and Catholicism in Paris
Introduction: The Privilege of Banality -- Part One: Curating Catholic Privilege -- Evangelization and Normalization -- Crystallization and Renaissance -- Part Two: Mediating Catholic Privilege -- Walls That Bleed -- Learning How to Look -- Part Three: Reproducing Catholic Privilege -- The Immediate...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic/Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Chicago London
The University of Chicago Press
2020
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| In: | Year: 2020 |
| Series/Journal: | Class 200
|
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Paris
/ Catholicism
/ Secularism
/ Art
/ Religious policy
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CD Christianity and Culture KBG France KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Further subjects: | B
Church and state (France) (Paris)
B Art and religion (France) (Paris) B Secularism (France) (Paris) B Catholic Church Social aspects (France) (Paris) |
| Online Access: |
Table of Contents Blurb Literaturverzeichnis Volltext (doi) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
|
| Summary: | Introduction: The Privilege of Banality -- Part One: Curating Catholic Privilege -- Evangelization and Normalization -- Crystallization and Renaissance -- Part Two: Mediating Catholic Privilege -- Walls That Bleed -- Learning How to Look -- Part Three: Reproducing Catholic Privilege -- The Immediate, the Material, and the Fetish -- The Banality of Privilege "In the French public sphere, Catholicism remains a monumental presence. It defines the temporal and spatial rhythms of Paris and yet it often fades into the background as nothing more than "heritage" in an otherwise secular nation. In a creative inversion, Elaine Oliphant asks in The Privilege of Being Banal what, exactly, is hiding in plain sight? Is the banality of Catholicism a kind of power? Oliphant's focus on the banal is exceptional in ethnographic studies of religion, which tend to seek out the spectacular. Focusing on the unremarked entails a radical disavowal of the view that there is anything natural or inevitable in Catholicism's banality, and indeed Oliphant unearths the ongoing efforts that contribute to the perception of Catholic symbols as subtly secular. Exploring the violent histories and alternate trajectories effaced through the contemporary banal, this richly textured ethnography lays bare the profound nostalgia that undergirds Catholicism's circulation in non-religious sites such as museums, corporate spaces, and political debates. Oliphant's aim is to unravel the contradictions between religion and secularism and, in the process, show how aesthetics and politics come together in contemporary France to foster the kind of banality that Hannah Arendt warned against: the incapacity to take on another person's experience of the world. A creative meditation on the power of the taken-for-granted, The Privilege of Being Banal is a landmark study of religion, aesthetics, and public space"-- |
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| Item Description: | Includes bibliographical references and index |
| ISBN: | 022673112X |
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226731438.001.0001 |