The Public Work of Christmas

The Public Work of Christmas PDF Author: Pamela E. Klassen
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773557954
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Christmas is not a holiday just for Christians anymore, if it ever was. Embedded in calendars around the world and long a lucrative merchandising opportunity, Christmas enters multicultural, multi-religious public spaces, provoking both festivity and controversy, hospitality and hostility. The Public Work of Christmas provides a comparative historical and ethnographic perspective on the politics of Christmas in multicultural contexts ranging from a Jewish museum in Berlin to a shopping boulevard in Singapore. A seasonal celebration that is at once inclusive and assimilatory, Christmas offers a clarifying lens for considering the historical and ongoing intersections of multiculturalism, Christianity, and the nationalizing and racializing of religion. The essays gathered here examine how cathedrals, banquets, and carols serve as infrastructures of memory that hold up Christmas as a civic, yet unavoidably Christian holiday. At the same time, the authors show how the public work of Christmas depends on cultural forms that mark, mask, and resist the ongoing power of Christianity in the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike. Legislated into paid holidays and commodified into marketplaces, Christmas has arguably become more cultural than religious, making ever wider both its audience and the pool of workers who make it happen every year. The Public Work of Christmas articulates a fresh reading of Christmas – as fantasy, ethos, consumable product, site of memory, and terrain for the revival of exclusionary visions of nation and whiteness – at a time of renewed attention to the fragility of belonging in diverse societies. Contributors include Herman Bausinger (Tübingen), Marion Bowman (Open), Juliane Brauer (MPI Berlin), Simon Coleman (Toronto), Yaniv Feller (Wesleyan), Christian Marchetti (Tübingen), Helen Mo (Toronto), Katja Rakow (Utrecht), Sophie Reimers (Berlin), Tiina Sepp (Tartu), and Isaac Weiner (Ohio State).

The Public Work of Christmas

The Public Work of Christmas PDF Author: Pamela E. Klassen
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773557954
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christmas is not a holiday just for Christians anymore, if it ever was. Embedded in calendars around the world and long a lucrative merchandising opportunity, Christmas enters multicultural, multi-religious public spaces, provoking both festivity and controversy, hospitality and hostility. The Public Work of Christmas provides a comparative historical and ethnographic perspective on the politics of Christmas in multicultural contexts ranging from a Jewish museum in Berlin to a shopping boulevard in Singapore. A seasonal celebration that is at once inclusive and assimilatory, Christmas offers a clarifying lens for considering the historical and ongoing intersections of multiculturalism, Christianity, and the nationalizing and racializing of religion. The essays gathered here examine how cathedrals, banquets, and carols serve as infrastructures of memory that hold up Christmas as a civic, yet unavoidably Christian holiday. At the same time, the authors show how the public work of Christmas depends on cultural forms that mark, mask, and resist the ongoing power of Christianity in the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike. Legislated into paid holidays and commodified into marketplaces, Christmas has arguably become more cultural than religious, making ever wider both its audience and the pool of workers who make it happen every year. The Public Work of Christmas articulates a fresh reading of Christmas – as fantasy, ethos, consumable product, site of memory, and terrain for the revival of exclusionary visions of nation and whiteness – at a time of renewed attention to the fragility of belonging in diverse societies. Contributors include Herman Bausinger (Tübingen), Marion Bowman (Open), Juliane Brauer (MPI Berlin), Simon Coleman (Toronto), Yaniv Feller (Wesleyan), Christian Marchetti (Tübingen), Helen Mo (Toronto), Katja Rakow (Utrecht), Sophie Reimers (Berlin), Tiina Sepp (Tartu), and Isaac Weiner (Ohio State).

The Public Work of Christmas

The Public Work of Christmas PDF Author: Pamela E. Klassen
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773557962
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Christmas is not a holiday just for Christians anymore, if it ever was. Embedded in calendars around the world and long a lucrative merchandising opportunity, Christmas enters multicultural, multi-religious public spaces, provoking both festivity and controversy, hospitality and hostility. The Public Work of Christmas provides a comparative historical and ethnographic perspective on the politics of Christmas in multicultural contexts ranging from a Jewish museum in Berlin to a shopping boulevard in Singapore. A seasonal celebration that is at once inclusive and assimilatory, Christmas offers a clarifying lens for considering the historical and ongoing intersections of multiculturalism, Christianity, and the nationalizing and racializing of religion. The essays gathered here examine how cathedrals, banquets, and carols serve as infrastructures of memory that hold up Christmas as a civic, yet unavoidably Christian holiday. At the same time, the authors show how the public work of Christmas depends on cultural forms that mark, mask, and resist the ongoing power of Christianity in the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike. Legislated into paid holidays and commodified into marketplaces, Christmas has arguably become more cultural than religious, making ever wider both its audience and the pool of workers who make it happen every year. The Public Work of Christmas articulates a fresh reading of Christmas – as fantasy, ethos, consumable product, site of memory, and terrain for the revival of exclusionary visions of nation and whiteness – at a time of renewed attention to the fragility of belonging in diverse societies. Contributors include Herman Bausinger (Tübingen), Marion Bowman (Open), Juliane Brauer (MPI Berlin), Simon Coleman (Toronto), Yaniv Feller (Wesleyan), Christian Marchetti (Tübingen), Helen Mo (Toronto), Katja Rakow (Utrecht), Sophie Reimers (Berlin), Tiina Sepp (Tartu), and Isaac Weiner (Ohio State).

Postsecular History

Postsecular History PDF Author: Maxwell Kennel
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030857581
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book explores how contemporary approaches to the meaning of time and history follow patterns that are simultaneously political and theological. Even after postsecular critiques of Christianity, religion, and secularity, many influential ways of dividing time and history continue to be formed by providential narratives that mediate between experience and expectation in movements from promise to fulfilment. In response to persistent theological influences within ostensibly secular ways of understanding time and history, Postsecular History revisits and revises the concept of periodization by tracing powerful efforts to divide time into past, present, and future, and by critiquing historical partitions between the Reformation and Enlightenment. Developing a postsecular critique of theopolitical periodization in six chapters, Postsecular History questions how relations of possession, novelty, freedom, and instrumentality implied in the prefix ‘post’ are reproduced in postsecular discourses and the field of political theology.

Pandemic Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora in Germany

Pandemic Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora in Germany PDF Author: Margaret Haverty
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031652118
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description


Representing God

Representing God PDF Author: Méadhbh McIvor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691193622
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
"Over the past two decades, increasing numbers of Britons possessing Christian views and beliefs have taken to the courts to enforce what are framed as "religious rights" under both European and domestic legislation. These cases typically involve Christians who have been penalized for seeking faith-based exemptions from their conditions of employment - e.g. Christian registrars who claim a conscientious objection to registering the marriages or civil partnerships of same-sex couples, or employees who ask for exceptions to uniform policies that forbid the visible wearing of religious jewellery (crosses and crucifixes). Observers of American politics and culture will be familiar with the view that devout Christians are victims of secular intolerance. American right-wing evangelical groups have launched well-funded legal challenges to federal and state laws with a view to establishing opt-out or conscientious objection provisions of the sort noted above. (Some of these cases will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court soon.) The American connection to the English controversies is direct, as the legal activism of English lobby organizations such as the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) is inspired by American conservative legal strategies - and CLC also receives donations from American sources. (Although it should be noted that most of CLC's donor base is English.) This is an especially delicate matter in England - a country which maintains an established Church but which remains wary of those who "do God" in public. This book is an ethnographic investigation of this contemporary issue and is based on the author's two years of ethnographic research split between a conservative Christian lobby group (CLC) and a conservative evangelical church in London. The author reveals that evangelicals on the ground are deeply ambivalent about the impact of this "legal theology". Although some wholeheartedly support the legal battles waged by organizations like CLC and see them as essential for allowing them to discharge their missionary obligations, others are concerned about the possible negative consequences of using secular law as a vehicle for their faith and the potential damage such legal strategies might do to their efforts to spread the Gospel"--

Majorities, Minorities, and the Future of Nationhood

Majorities, Minorities, and the Future of Nationhood PDF Author: Liav Orgad
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009233335
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The design of democratic institutions includes a variety of barriers to protect against the tyranny of the majority, including international human rights, cultural minority rights, and multiculturalism. In the twenty-first century, majorities have re-asserted themselves, sometimes reasonably, referring to social cohesion and national identity, at other times in the form of populist movements challenging core foundations of liberal democracy. This volume intervenes in this debate by examining the legitimacy of conflicting majority and minority claims. Are majorities a legal concept, holding rights and subject to limitations? How can we define a sense of nationhood that brings groups together rather than tears them apart? In this volume, world-leading experts are brought together for the first time to debate the rights of both majorities and minorities. The outcome is a fascinating exchange on one of the greatest challenges facing liberal democracies today.

Feeling Political

Feeling Political PDF Author: Ute Frevert
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303089858X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Historicizing both emotions and politics, this open access book argues that the historical work of emotion is most clearly understood in terms of the dynamics of institutionalization. This is shown in twelve case studies that focus on decisive moments in European and US history from 1800 until today. Each case study clarifies how emotions were central to people’s political engagement and its effects. The sources range from parliamentary buildings and social movements, to images and speeches of presidents, from fascist cemeteries to the International Criminal Court. Both the timeframe and the geographical focus have been chosen to highlight the increasingly participatory character of nineteenth- and twentieth-century politics, which is inconceivable without the work of emotions.

A Handbook of Economic Anthropology

A Handbook of Economic Anthropology PDF Author: Carrier, James G.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1839108924
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
This timely Research Agenda examines the ways in which public–private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure continue to excite policy makers, governments, research scholars and critics around the world. It analyzes the PPP research journey to date and articulates the lessons learned as a result of the increasing interest in improving infrastructure governance. Expert international contributors explore how PPP ideas have spread, transferred and transformed, and propose a range of future research directions.

At Home in Our Sounds

At Home in Our Sounds PDF Author: Rachel Anne Gillett
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190842709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
At Home in Our Sounds examines the ways Black artists reacted to the heightened visibility of racial difference in interwar Paris, illustrating the effect jazz music had on the enormous social challenges Europe faced in the aftermath of World War I.

Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion

Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion PDF Author: Abby Day
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192866680
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Mocked, vilified, blamed, and significantly misunderstood - the 'Baby Boomers' are members of the generation of post-WWII babies who came of age in the 1960s. Parents of the 1940s and 1950s raised their Boomer children to be respectable church-attendees, and yet in some ways demonstrated an ambivalence that permitted their children to spurn religion and eventually to raise their own children to be the least religious generation ever. The Baby Boomers studied here, living in the UK and Canada, were the last generation to have been routinely baptised and taken regularly to mainstream, Anglican churches. So, what went wrong - or, perhaps, right? This study, based on in-depth interviews and compared to other studies and data, is the first to offer a sociological account of the sudden transition from religious parents to non-religious children and grandchildren, focusing exclusively on this generation of ex-Anglican Boomers. Now in their 60s and 70s, the Boomers featured here make sense of their lives and the world they helped create. They discuss how they continue to dis-believe in God yet have an easy relationship with ghosts, and how they did not, as theologians often claim, fall into an immoral self-centred abyss. They forged different practices and sites (whether in 'this world' or 'elsewhere') of meaning, morality, community, and transcendence. They also reveal here the values, practices, and beliefs they transmitted to the future generations, helping shape the non-religious identities of Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.