Gods Of The City: Religion And The American Urban Landscape

Book Summary

This book explores the distinctly urban forms of religious experience and practice that have developed in relation to the spaces, social conditions, and history of American cities. Robert Orsi's revelatory introduction establishes the broad historical context for the volume and develops the theoretical issues and perspectives that orient the collection. The essays that follow study the struggles of Haitian voodoo practitioners to serve the spirits in the unfamiliar landscape of New York City; the contested construction and interpretation of places of worship by Hindu immigrants in suburban Maryland, Asian American Presbyterians in Seattle, and Cuban Catholics in Miami; the transformation of city apartments into suitable venues for the spirits of santeria New York and New Jersey; the role of Italian American street festival in staking out and negotiating the boundaries between neighborhood races, and ethnic groups in Brooklyn and East Harlem; political conflict during a Good Friday Stations of the Cross on the Lower East Side; and the transformation of streets in New York City into a "cathedral of the open air" by Salvation Army lassies at the turn of the century.

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