The Privilege of Being Banal

The Privilege of Being Banal
Author: Elayne Oliphant
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2021-06-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780226731124


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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.


The Privilege of Being Banal
Language: en
Pages: 284
Authors: Elayne Oliphant
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-06-14 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

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France, officially, is a secular nation. Yet Catholicism is undeniably a monumental presence, defining the temporal and spatial rhythms of Paris. At the same ti
The Privilege of Being Banal
Language: en
Pages: 285
Authors: Elayne Oliphant
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-06-01 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

GET EBOOK

France, officially, is a secular nation. Yet Catholicism is undeniably a monumental presence, defining the temporal and spatial rhythms of Paris. At the same ti
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Pages: 273
Authors: Neil Tarrant
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-11-18 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

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A look at the history of censorship, science, and magic from the Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era. Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looki
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Language: en
Pages: 259
Authors: Elizabeth K. Minnich
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-12-07 - Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

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How is it possible to murder a million people one by one? Hatred, fear, madness of one or many people cannot explain it. No one can be so possessed for the mont
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Language: en
Pages: 336
Authors: Eula Biss
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-09-01 - Publisher: Penguin

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A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME , NPR, INSTYLE, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING “A sensational new book [that] tries to figure