Profane & Sacred: Latino/a American Writers Reveal the Interplay of the Secular and the Religious

(Paperback)

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Profane & Sacred examines religious discourse in contemporary Latino/a fiction, exploring how religion creates, mediates or changes Latino culture and identity. Much contemporary literary criticism on Latino/a literature has focused on the bilingual and bicultural nature of Latino identity, history and cultural production. But just as the multiplicity of cultures and languages has shaped Latino identity and history, so too has religion. Studying the religious discourse found in fiction can clearly enrich not only our perception of the diversity within the Hispanic communities, but also the diversity between sociologists and creative writers.

Reviews

This original contribution to the field of Latino/a literature, focuses on the representation of religion and its practices. Kevane gives a compelling account of the alternatives to Christian faith offered by Latino/a writers who believe that something is broken in the religious practice of Hispanic culture. With this book, Kevane also challenges the rigid categories often used to describe the faith and religious practice of Latino/as, and she enriches our thinking about the new and alternative stories these writers tell about religious experience. -- Benigno Trigo, director of Graduate Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Vanderbilt University
Given that most Latinos believe in God, most are first-generation immigrants, and at least one in four Latinos are poor, how can faithwhich is frequently politically escapistadequately confront oppression Bridget Kevane explores how recent Latino/anovels provide extended reflections on this problem of the politics of faith, exposing both the incompatibilities of religious practices and social justice and also devising new forms of politically-interventionist faith. Profane & Sacred is an important contribution to an exciting new body of work on the political significance of Latino/a religious practices... -- David Luis-Brown, assistant professor of English, University of Miami
Bridget Kevane takes the reader on an insightful journey through the meandering road that is the U.S. Latino/a religious experience as expressed through literature. No one interested in the interaction of religion and literature can afford to leave closed the window that Dr. Kevane has opened through her gifted literary analysis of important Mexican American, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Jewish-American works. -- Hector Avalos, Iowa State University
Given that most Latinos believe in God, most are first-generation immigrants, and at least one in four Latinos are poor, how can faithwhich is frequently politically escapistadequately confront oppression Bridget Kevane explores how recent Latino/a novels provide extended reflections on this problem of the politics of faith, exposing both the incompatibilities of religious practices and social justice and also devising new forms of politically-interventionist faith. Profane & Sacred is an important contribution to an exciting new body of work on the political significance of Latino/a religious practices. -- David Luis-Brown, assistant professor of English, University of Miami
A useful introduction to contemporary literature of interest to Christianity and Literature readers.These would be good texts for graduate courses; they deserve greater attention. * Christianity and Literature *

Author Bio

Bridget Kevane is associate professor of modern languages and literatures at Montana State University. She is the author of Latino Literature in America.