Urban Religion: A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change

by Jörg Rüpke

Overview

So far religion has been seen as cause for dramatic developments in the history of cities, it has contributed to the monumentalisation of centres and or has given importance to ex-centric places. Very recently, anthropologists have been discovering religion in the contemporary global city. But still awaiting historical investigation is the specific urban character of religious ideas, practices and institutions and the role of urban space shaping this very ‘religion’ in the course of history. The time-span from the Hellenistic age to Late Antiquity was crucial in the establishment of concepts and institutions of ‘religion’ and witnessed extended waves of urbanisation, Rome being central to this. In addressing this problem, this book fills a significant gap in the scholarship on urban religion across time. Taking seriously the proposition that space is condition, medium and outcome of social relations, the development of ‘urban religion’ in lived urban space and urban culture or urbanity offers a lens onto processes of religious change that have been neglected for the history of religion and for the study of urbanism. The key thesis is that city-space engineered the major changes that revolutionised religions.

»This stimulating book makes use of archaeology and history to address religion as an essential component of urban life in both the past and the present. -With a strong basis in the ancient Mediterranean as well as an insightful view of modern urban life, Rüpke emphasizes that the practice and performance of religion at the everyday level is as essential in the creation of an urban ethos as the grand temples and institutions promulgated by the elite.«

Monica L. Smith, author of Cities: The First 6,000 Years

»Jörg Rüpke offers a characteristically original and learned series of reflections on some of the many ways in which the history of religions and the history of cities might be entangled. Urban Religion offers no single overarching thesis, but it is consistently thought-provoking and suggests many intriguing lines of investigation for the future.«

Greg Woolf, Institute of Classical Studies, London

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110628685
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	02/24/2020
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jörg Rüpke, Universität Erfurt.


Jörg Rüpke, University of Erfurt, Germany.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Urban religion in a historical perspective 1

1 Religion in the metropolis 1

2 From lived to urban religion 6

3 The plan of the book 8

1 Looking at religion in the city 16

1.1 Introduction 16

1.2 Religious agency and sacralisation 18

1.3 Selectivity and canonicity as intensification of sacralisation 23

1.4 Reflecting on the urban 25

1.5 Urbanism and the formation of religious groups 27

2 Before urban religion: Fustel de Coulanges and narratives of civic religion 30

2.1 The problem 30

2.2 Polis religion 31

2.3 Critique 37

2.4 Comparative perspectives on cities in other regions and periods 40

2.5 Urbanised religion 43

3 Urbanising and urbanised religion 47

3.0 Introduction 47

3.1 Religion as spatial practice 47

3.2 Religion and urbanisation 51

3.3 Religions as urbanising factors 53

3.4 Urbanised religion 58

3.5 Conclusion 60

4 Presupposing the city: Philosophical piety as urbanised religion 62

4.1 Urban literature 62

4.2 The city as the ideal place for a good life 64

4.3 Religious phenomena as phenomena in a city 67

4.4 Philosophical debate as an indicator of urbanity 73

4.5 Conclusion: Urbanised religion 75

5 Crafting complex place: Religion and urban development 77

5.1 Introduction 77

5.2 'On places' 79

5.3 Time and place 81

5.4 The idea of a city? 83

5.5 Multiple appropriations 85

5.6 Trajectories 86

6 Materiality of religion in urban space: Neighbourhoods of a metropolis 88

6.1 Visible and material religion 88

6.2 Religion and material objects 90

6.3 Urban space 95

6.4 Religious practices and the city 98

6.5 Religion at the crossroads 102

6.6 Conclusion: Religion and public space 112

7 Urban resilience and religion: Attaching time to place 114

7.1 Resilience and religion 114

7.2 A wealth of practices 118

7.3 Historical background: The first written Roman calendar 120

7.4 Adding urban history 124

7.5 Negative history 127

7.6 Urban practices in the face of empire building 132

7.7 Attachment to urban places 135

7.8 Spatial interest and attachment to place in contemporary literary texts 139

7.9 Conclusion 142

8 Urban Selves: Individualisation in urban space 145

8.1 The problem 145

8.2 The concept of the self 145

8.3 An urban market for the shaping of the self 150

8.4 Urban identities 153

8.5 Citizenship and imagined cities 161

8.6 Conclusion 165

9 Urbanity and multiple religious identities 166

9.1 Introduction 166

9.2 Religious identities as seen by urban observers 167

9.3 Semantics 176

9.4 Construing identity boundaries in hindsight 177

9.5 Mapping differences 179

9.6 Prescribing differences in the Mishnah 182

9.7 Urbanity in the Mishnah 184

9.8 A particular and a general conclusion 187

Conclusion: Religion and urbanity 190

References 195

Index 233