Religious Pluralism and the City: Inquiries into Postsecular Urbanism

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Religious Pluralism and the City challenges the notion that the city is a secular place, and calls for an analysis of how religion and the city are intertwined. It is the first book to analyze the explanatory value of a number of typologies already in use around this topic from "holy city" to "secular city", from "fundamentalist" to "postsecular city". By intertwining the city and religion, urban theory and theories of religion, this is the first book to provide an international and interdisciplinary analysis of post-secular urbanism. The book argues that, given the rise of religiously inspired violence and the increasing significance of charismatic Christianity, Islam and other spiritual traditions, the master narrative that modern societies are secular societies has lost its empirical plausibility. Instead, we are seeing the pluralization of religion, the co-existence of different religious worldviews, and the simultaneity of secular and religious institutions that shape everyday life. These particular constellations of "religious pluralism" are, above all, played out in cities. Including contributions from Peter L. Berger and Nezar Alsayyad, this book conceptually and empirically revokes the dissolution between city and religion to unveil its intimate relationship, and offers an alternative view on the quotidian state of the global urban condition.

Reviews

This book provides a wonderful addition to the growing field of urban religion, religion(s) in cities, and surely religion in the postmodern era. * Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review *
A remarkably innovative theoretical intervention. This scintillating book goes beyond existing work in the burgeoning field of urban religion by focusing on religious pluralism in cities. Based on the recognition of cities inherent pluralism, it explores how this pluralism has evolved historically, is reconfigured in our era of intensified mobility, and shapes religious life in major metropolitan centers across the world. The book magisterially unpacks new religious-secular cleavages and is highly recommended for students of social sciences, urbanism, and religion. * Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Professor of Cultural Sociology, University of Leipzig, Germany *
A timely and highly relevant book examining religious-secular dynamics in contemporary cities. By combining cutting-edge theoretical developments on space, power and religion, with rich empirical cases, the authors offer a comprehensive understanding of the nature and transformation of religious pluralism in urban contexts across the world. A must read for anyone interested in learning about the changing role of religion in times of pluralism. * Mar Griera, Associate Professor, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, Spain *
Helmuth Berking, Silke Steets and Jochen Schwenk deserve kudos for publishing this wideranging, provocative and empirically engaging collection examining religious pluralism and urban life today. The contributions are diverse and smart, both in their theoretical orientations and in their approaches to different cities and religious communities. Anyone interested in a multitude of pressing contemporary sociological and political issues will find this book both intriguing and of great value. * Mitchell Cohen, Professor of Political Science, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA *

Author Bio

Helmuth Berking is Professor of Sociology and Fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. Silke Steets is a Heisenberg Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy at Leipzig University, Germany. Jochen Schwenk is Lecturer and Post-doctoral Researcher at the Technische Universitt Darmstadt, Germany.