Oliphant Elayne - The Privilege Of Being Banal Art Secularism And Catholicism In Paris - Paperback

Binding: Paperback
Description: France officially is a secular nation. Yet Catholicism is undeniably a monumental presence defining the temporal and spatial rhythms of Paris. At the same time it often fades into the background as nothing more than heritage. In a creative inversion Elayne Oliphant asks in The Privilege of Being Banal what exactly is hiding in plain sight? Could the banality of Catholicism actually be a kind of hidden power? Exploring the violent histories and alternate trajectories effaced through this banal backgrounding of a crucial aspect of French history and culture this richly textured ethnography lays bare the profound nostalgia that undergirds Catholicism's circulation in nonreligious sites such as museums corporate spaces and political debates. Oliphant's aim is to unravel the contradictions of 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.
Title: The Privilege Of Being Banal Art Secularism And Catholicism In Paris
Author(s): Oliphant Elayne
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press
Barcode: 9780226731261
Pages: 280 Pages, 8 Halftones
Publication Date: 4/6/2021
Series: Class 200: New Studies in Religion
Category: Miscellaneous Items