Sacred in the City

This book reflects the way in which the city interacts with the sacred in all its many guises, with religion and the human search for meaning in life. As the process of urbanization of society is accelerating thus giving an increasing importance to cities and the 'metropolis, it is relevant to investigate the social or cultural cohesion that these urban agglomerations manifest. Religion is keenly observed as witnessing a growth, crucially impacting cultural and political dynamics, as well as determining the emergence of new sacred symbols and their inscription in urban spaces worldwide. The sacred has become an important category of a new interpretation of social and cultural transformation processes. From a unique broader perspective, the volume focuses on the relationship between the city and the sacred. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, combining the expertise of philosophers, historians, architects, social geographers, sociologists and anthropologists, it draws a nuanced picture of the different layers of religion, of the sacred and its diverse forms within the city, with examples from Europe, South America and the Caribbean, and Africa.Table of ContentIntroduction; Part I: The Sacred and the City: Theoretical Approaches; 1. Recognition and Urban Public Space: A Philosophical Reflection, Walter Van Herck; 2.The Urbanization of Society: Towards a Cultural Analysis of the Sacred in Urban Space, Liliana Gomez; 3.The Sacred and the Creation of the Urban Public Domain. Exploring the Post-secular Public Sphere, Pieter Dronkers; Part II: Religion, Built Environments and Urban Societies; 4. Religion in the Built Environment: Aesth/Ethics, Ritual and Memory in Lived Urban Space, Sigurd Bergmann; 5. Urbanity and Spirituality: On the Alleged Profanity of Metropolitan Life, Jan-Hendrik Bakker; 6. Embracing Trees in a Hostile Environment: Reflections on the Zen-Buddhist Movement "Caminhada no Parque" in the City of Sao, Paulo Frank Usarski; 7. The Meaning of Life for the Urbanite: Religious and Atheist Positioning in an Urbanized World, Rik Pinxten & Lisa Dikomitis; Part III: Sacred Symbols, Sacred Spaces; 8. Sacred Symbols of the City: Babel, Barbara and Their Towers, Anne-Marie Korte; 9. Elemental Microcosms: Sacred Space and the City, Renee Kohler-Ryan; 10. Relocating and Negotiating the Sacred: The Reception of the Chapel in in a Shopping Mall, Anne Birgitta Pessi & Peter Nynas; Part IV: Politics of the Sacred in Contemporary Urban Spaces; 11. Kinshasa and its (Un)Certainties: The Polis and the Sacred, Filip De Boeck; 12. Modernity, Resistance and the Politics of a Sacred Sense of Place, Haim Jacobi; 12. Urban Culture and Syncretism in Havana: The Search for the Sacred in the City, Liliana Gomez; 13. Remaking Sacred Spaces in the Postsoviet Urban Landscape in Ukraine, Catherine Wanner; Bibliography; Index.Review QuoteThis richly diverse collection patiently exploressome of the intersections between our understanding of urban space and ourunderstanding of the sacred, and so contributes to the enrichment of both.Review QuoteThis volume combines high-standard interdisciplinary scholarship withprofound philosophical soundings of contemporary forms of religiosity.Theoretical reflections go hand in hand with practical illustrations of theamazing ways in which sacredness permeates civic reality.Biographical NoteWalter Van Herck is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Liliana Gomez is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, and Research Scholar at the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, USA. She is also Lecturer at the Latin American Institute at the Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany.Analysis of (post-)secularized and modernized societies to define the state of the sacred today and to decipher its different forms within the city.Analyzes the shaping of spiritual meaning, religion and world-views within urban space.Addresses recent negotiations of the sacred between politics and aesthetics, the state and the city.Discusses the phenomenon of the sacred and urban space in postmodern, postcolonial and post-soviet contexts.Contributions from a multi-disciplinary team of leading international experts.