The Secular Spectacle: Performing Religion in a Southern Town
- ISBN-10
- 0199860289
- ISBN-13
- 9780199860289
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Chad E. Seales
Description
The manufacturing town of Siler City, North Carolina, was transformed by the arrival of Latino migrants in the 1990s. Using ethnographic and archival sources, Chad E. Seales argues that white Protestants in Siler ritually engaged material cultures of racial segregation and southern industrialization that had been forged in the early twentieth century in order to reclaim public space following the arrival of Latino Catholics. Seales offers a new approach to the study of material religion by considering not just how Protestants use material objects within the bounds of recognizable Christian practice, but also how they use those morally charged material objects to maintain religious order in secular life. In 1901, for example, Confederate Colonel John Randolph Lane led the inaugural Fourth of July parade in downtown Siler City. For southern whites, his bodily performance represented the real presence of Confederate sacrifice for Christian homes. Across the twentieth century,white Protestants publically displayed the moral order embodied by Lane, an order predicated on the racialization of the town's inhabitants, in the annual rites surrounding the Fourth of July parade. At the end of the twentieth century, they renewed the downtown parade in response to Latino Catholics, who had demonstrated their public presence through the ritual performance of the crucifixion of Jesus in a Good Friday procession. Using the contrast between parades and processions, along with other examples, Seales argues that southern whites cultivated their own regional brand of American secularism and used it to claim and regulate public spaces
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-11-13
- 256 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
Similar books
-
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen HalttunenBy her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval oflicer away on duty ...
-
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume I
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen... had married the widowed daughter of a Washington tavern keeper. By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.
-
Rice University: One Hundred Years in Pictures
By Karen Hess Rogers, Lee Pecht, Alan Harris Bath... Bill, Kennedy, Jacqueline, Kennedy, John F., Kidd, Albert and Elizabeth, Kieran Timberlake (architects), Kilpatrick, John, Kirkland, William, Kissinger, ...
-
Cengage Advantage Series: The Enduring Vision
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen... 195–196, 361; abolishing of, 257 Ticonderoga fort, 157, 169 Tilden, Samuel J., 524 Timberlake, Peggy O'Neale, 301 Timbuktu, Mali, Sankore Mosque in, ...
-
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume 1
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen HalttunenBy her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval officer away on duty, ...
-
The Cherokee Struggle to Maintain Identity in the 17th and 18th Centuries
By Jr., William R. ReynoldsTimberlake, p. 8 (9–10). 2. Timberlake, p. 36 (70). 3. Hoig, p. 45; Kelly, p. 22; Timberlake, p. 37 (72–73). 4. Alderman, p. 6; Timberlake, p.
-
Prehistoric Copper Mining in Europe, 5500-500 BC
By William O'BrienTimberlake, S. 2002. 'Ancient prospection for metals and modern prospection for ancient mines: the evidence for Bronze Age mining within the British Isles', ...
-
The Sixties in the News: How an Era Unfolded in American Newspapers, 1959-1973
By William J. Ryczekhadn't known Timberlake until the two moved in together. Kathy had worked at a series of jobs, including electronics assembler and a dancer in a bar, ...
-
A Borderland Confederate
By William Lyne WilsonTerrill, Philip, killed Thompson, William S. Timberlake, George, wounded. Timberlake, Harry. Timberlake, J. H., wounded. Timberlake, J. L., wounded.
-
Golf in Columbus at Wyandot Country Club: A Lost Donald Ross Classic
By William R. CaseAs the caretaker of the clubhouse, Timberlake was furnished living quarters on the second floor. Around 8:00 p.m., he descended into the basement for the ...