Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality / Edition 2

by Belden C. Lane

Overview

This substantially expanded edition of Belden C. Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred includes a new introductory chapter that offers three new interpretive models for understanding American sacred space. Lane maintains his approach of interspersing shorter and more personal pieces among full-length essays that explore how Native American, early French and Spanish, Puritan New England, and Catholic Worker traditions has each expressed the connection between spirituality and place.
A new section at the end of the book includes three chapters that address methodological issues in the study of spirituality, the symbol-making process of religious experience, and the tension between place and placelessness in Christian spirituality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801868382
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/21/2001
Edition description:	expanded edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Belden C. Lane is the Hotfelder Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Johns Hopkins Edition
Introduction: Place and Meaning in American Spirituality
Part I: Place in American Religious Life
Chapter 1. Axioms for the Study of Sacred Place
Chapter 2. Giving Voice to the Place: Three Models for Understanding American Sacred Space
Part II: The Geography of American Spiritual Traditions
Mythic Landscapes: The Ordinary as Mask for the Holy
Chapter 3. Seeking a Sacred Center: Places and Themes in Native American Spirituality
Mythic Landscapes: The Mountain That Was God
Chapter 4. Baroque Spirituality in New Spain and New France
Mythic Landscapes: The Desert Imagination of Edward Abbey
Chapter 5. The Puritan Reading of the New England Landscape
Mythic Landscapes: Galesville, Wisconsin: Locus Mirabilis
Chapter 6. The Correspondence of Spiritual and Material Worlds in Shaker Spirituality
Mythic Landscapes: Liminal Places in the Evangelical Revival
Chapter 7. Precarity and Permanence: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Sense of Place
Part III: Method and Perspective in Studying American Spirituality and Place
Chapter 8. The Ephemeral Character of Place: Problems in Articulating an American Sense of Sacred Space
Chapter 9. Edwards and the Spider as Symbol: Reflections on Spirituality as an Academic Discipline
Chapter 10. The Imagined Landscape: The Tension between Place and Placelessness in Christian Spirituality
Notes

Editorial Reviews

Landscapes of the Sacred is primarily a work in Christian spirituality, but it also ranges over religious traditions, literary landscapes, and personal experiences, illuminating a path to deeper understanding of the sacred meanings attached to places. This is no shallow synthesis. By constantly attending to concrete descriptions of places, and the tensions and contraductions that arise in the interpretation of sacred space, Lane provides direction for anyone seeking to understand this issue.
--Timothy Hessel-Robinson, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

[Lane] points to things I have quietly suspected, though never have been able to articulate . . . For a culture obsessed with time and time management, Lane's study is a quiet reminder of the formative effect of space.
--George R. Graham, Weavings

Both scholar and pilgrim, Belden Lane provides us a remarkably informed, reflective, personal account of Americans' sense of sacred space.
--Journal of Cultural Geography

Clearly written and grounded in far-ranging scholarship . . . Anyone interested in American history and, more specifically, with American spirituality will be deeply enriched by studying (not just reading) this brilliant text.
--Most Rev. Robert F. Morneau, auxiliary bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin, St. Anthony Messenger

Lane offers an essay tour that is also a tour de force.
--Catherine L. Albanese, Horizons

Lane's vast array of case studies and allusions in analyzed by a fertile imagination that bounces between ethnolography, iconography, phenomenology, and poetics. A joy to read, this richly footnoted study is mind-boggling in its provocative assertion of the deep mysteries of place-bound identities.
--Choice

Read Belden Lane's book and you will encounter your own desire for that elusive sacred country where the ordinary world changes from the moment to the eternal, where opposites are reconciled and all things are drawn to the center in an irresistible confluence.
--Ruth M. Slickman, Review for Religious

This expanded edition of Lane's 1988 book benefits from over a decade of heightened scholarly interest in place and religion.
--Quincy D. Newell, Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher

[Lane] points to things I have quietly suspected, though never have been able to articulate . . . For a culture obsessed with time and time management, Lane's study is a quiet reminder of the formative effect of space.

Weavings - George R. Graham

Lane offers an essay tour that is also a tour de force.

Horizons - Catherine L. Albanese

Lane's vast array of case studies and allusions in analyzed by a fertile imagination that bounces between ethnolography, iconography, phenomenology, and poetics. A joy to read, this richly footnoted study is mind-boggling in its provocative assertion of the deep mysteries of place-bound identities.

Choice

This expanded edition of Lane's 1988 book benefits from over a decade of heightened scholarly interest in place and religion.

Religious Studies Review - Quincy D. Newell

Landscapes of the Sacred is primarily a work in Christian spirituality, but it also ranges over religious traditions, literary landscapes, and personal experiences, illuminating a path to deeper understanding of the sacred meanings attached to places. This is no shallow synthesis. By constantly attending to concrete descriptions of places, and the tensions and contraductions that arise in the interpretation of sacred space, Lane provides direction for anyone seeking to understand this issue.

ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment - Timothy Hessel-Robinson

Clearly written and grounded in far-ranging scholarship . . . Anyone interested in American history and, more specifically, with American spirituality will be deeply enriched by studying (not just reading) this brilliant text.

St. Anthony Messenger - Most Rev. Robert F. Morneau

Both scholar and pilgrim, Belden Lane provides us a remarkably informed, reflective, personal account of Americans' sense of sacred space.

Journal of Cultural Geography

Read Belden Lane's book and you will encounter your own desire for that elusive sacred country where the ordinary world changes from the moment to the eternal, where opposites are reconciled and all things are drawn to the center in an irresistible confluence.

Review for Religious - Ruth M. Slickman

Landscapes of the Sacred is primarily a work in Christian spirituality, but it also ranges over religious traditions, literary landscapes, and personal experiences, illuminating a path to deeper understanding of the sacred meanings attached to places. This is no shallow synthesis. By constantly attending to concrete descriptions of places, and the tensions and contraductions that arise in the interpretation of sacred space, Lane provides direction for anyone seeking to understand this issue.

— Timothy Hessel-Robinson

ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

[Lane] points to things I have quietly suspected, though never have been able to articulate... For a culture obsessed with time and time management, Lane's study is a quiet reminder of the formative effect of space.

— George R. Graham

Weavings

Read Belden Lane's book and you will encounter your own desire for that elusive sacred country where the ordinary world changes from the moment to the eternal, where opposites are reconciled and all things are drawn to the center in an irresistible confluence.

— Ruth M. Slickman

Review for Religious

Clearly written and grounded in far-ranging scholarship... Anyone interested in American history and, more specifically, with American spirituality will be deeply enriched by studying (not just reading) this brilliant text.

— Most Rev. Robert F. Morneau, auxiliary bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin

St. Anthony Messenger

Lane offers an essay tour that is also a tour de force.

— Catherine L. Albanese

Horizons

This expanded edition of Lane's 1988 book benefits from over a decade of heightened scholarly interest in place and religion.

— Quincy D. Newell

Religious Studies Review

Lane offers an essay tour that is also a tour de force.
—Horizons

Catherine L. Albanese

Clearly written and grounded in far-ranging scholarship . . . Anyone interested in American history and, more specifically, with American spirituality will be deeply enriched by studying (not just reading this brilliant text.
—St. Anthony Messenger

Robert F. Morneau

Read Belden Lane's book and you will encounter your own desire for that elusive sacred country where the ordinary world changes from the moment to the eternal, where opposites are reconciled and all things are drawn to the center in an irresistible confluence.
—Review for Religious

Ruth M. Slickman

[Lane] points to things I have quietly suspected, though never have been able to articulate . . . For a culture obsessed with time and time management, Lane's study is a quiet reminder of the formative effect of space.
—Weavings

George R. Graham

In this collection of scholarly essays and personal reflections, Lane (theology, Saint Louis U.) examines the connection between spirituality and place in the Native American, early French and Spanish, Puritan, Shaker, and Catholic Worker traditions. The expanded edition features a new introductory chapter that offers three new interpretive models for understanding American sacred space. The volume is not indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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