Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City

by Joseph Sciorra

Overview

"No one knows the world of Italian American Catholicism in contemporary New York better than Joseph Sciorra. In the five brilliant case studies that make up this book, Sciorra explores how Italian Americans construct, by hand, their religious environment—in their homes, in the streets, backyards, and sidewalks of the city—in a kind of sacred sweat equity. Like the artisans he writes about, Sciorra is a master craftsman, and Built with Faith shows him at the height of his powers."
—Robert A. Orsi, Grace Craddock Nagle Chair of Catholic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies and History at Northwestern University and author of The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950

Over the course of 130 years, Italian American Catholics in New York City have developed a varied repertoire of devotional art and architecture to create community-based sacred spaces in their homes and neighborhoods. These spaces exist outside of but in relationship to the consecrated halls of local parishes and are sites of worship in conventionally secular locations. Such ethnic building traditions and urban ethnic landscapes have long been neglected by all but a few scholars. Joseph Sciorra’s Built with Faith offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics.

Sciorra spent thirty-five years researching these community art forms and interviewing Italian immigrant and U.S.-born Catholics. By documenting the folklife of this group, Sciorra reveals how Italian Americans in the city use expressive culture and religious practices to transform everyday urban space into unique, communal sites of ethnically infused religiosity. The folk aesthetics practiced by individuals within their communities are integral to understanding how art is conceptualized, implemented, and esteemed outside of museum and gallery walls. Yard shrines, sidewalk altars, Nativity presepi, Christmas house displays, a stone-studded grotto, and neighborhood processions—often dismissed as kitsch or prized as folk art—all provide examples of the vibrant and varied ways contemporary Italian Americans use material culture, architecture, and public ceremonial display to shape the city’s religious and cultural landscapes.

Written in an accessible style that will appeal to general readers and scholars alike, Sciorra’s unique study contributes to our understanding of how value and meaning are reproduced at the confluences of everyday life.

Joseph Sciorra is the director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College. He is the editor of Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives and co-editor of Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women's Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621903833
Publisher:	University of Tennessee Press
Publication date:	05/15/2018
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Joseph Sciorra is the director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College. He is the editor of Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives and co-editor of Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women's Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 Private Devotions in Public Places: The Sacred Spaces of Yard Shrines and Sidewalk Altars 1

Chapter 2 Imagined Places and Fragile Landscapes: Nostalgia and Utopia in Nativity Presepi 61

Chapter 3 Festive Intensification and Place Consciousness in Christmas House Displays 91

Chapter 4 Multivocality and Sacred Space: The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island 121

Chapter 5 "We Go Where the Italians Live": Processions as Glocal Mapping in Williamsburg, Brooklyn 153

Conclusion 191

Notes 201

Bibliography 221

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

"No one knows the world of Italian American Catholicism in contemporary New York better than Joseph Sciorra. In the five brilliant case studies that make up this book, Sciorra explores how Italian Americans construct, by hand, their religious environment—in their homes, in the streets, backyards, and sidewalks of the city—in a kind of sacred sweat equity. Like the artisans he writes about, Sciorra is a master craftsman, and Built with Faith shows him at the height of his powers."
—Robert A. Orsi, Grace Craddock Nagle Chair of Catholic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies and History at Northwestern University and author of The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950


“Based on years of intensive fieldwork and astute interpretation, Joseph Sciorra’s Built with Faith brushes aside the simple stereotype of the ‘bathtub Virgin’ to illuminate the complex religious lives of Italian American New Yorkers. Sciorra offers a rich portrait of a little-known but resonant feature of New York’s cultural landscape that will fascinate scholars and general readers alike.”
—Dell Upton, Professor of Architectural History at UCLA and author of Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic


“Joseph Sciorra's admirable book, Built With Faith, carries the reader into Italian American New York where Catholic residents enhance many neighborhoods with imaginative yard shrines, elaborate sidewalk altars, miniature nativity scenes, and colorful displays of Christmas lights. These devotional spaces, as well as solemn outdoor processions on feast days, animate the urban landscape for the benefit of all residents. Every reader interested in religion, material culture, and the sense of place in urban life will appreciate Sciorra’s memorable text.”
—Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture and American Studies at Yale University and author of The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History
 

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