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The privilege of being banal : art, secularism, and Catholicism in Paris / Elayne Oliphant.
Van Pelt Library BX1533.P3 O45 2020
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Oliphant, Elayne, author.
- Series:
- Class 200, new studies in religion
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Catholic Church.
- Secularism--France--Paris.
- Secularism.
- Church and state--France--Paris.
- Church and state.
- Art and religion--France--Paris.
- Art and religion.
- Social aspects.
- Catholic Church--Social aspects--France--Paris.
- France--Paris.
- France.
- Physical Description:
- 276 pages ; 23 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- Summary:
- "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"-- Provided by publisher.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780226731124
- 022673112X
- 9780226731261
- 022673126X
- OCLC:
- 1143626041
- Publisher Number:
- 99987420686
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