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Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
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TY - CHAP
T1 - The reformation of place
T2 - religion, space and power
AU - Szerszynski, Bronislaw
PY - 2016/1/5
Y1 - 2016/1/5
N2 - In this chapter I reflect on the role played by the Protestant Reformation in shaping the western experience of place. First I examine the idea that the Reformation helps to effect a shift from absolute to abstract space, or from place to space, by purging the landscape of the dramatic highs and lows of spiritual intensity characteristic of Catholicism. I further explore this claim by situating this development within the longue durée of western religious history, a succession of distinctive ‘orderings of the sacred’ which together I term the ‘long arc of monotheism’. Second, however, I argue that the Reformation did not automatically lead to the hypermodern dissolution of space and the emergence of non-places but, more positively, constituted a final overcoming of archaic religion, and the possibility of a new experience of space and place. Thirdly I thus argue for a distinctive mode of placing, one suspended between the archaic and the modern, between belonging and not belonging.
AB - In this chapter I reflect on the role played by the Protestant Reformation in shaping the western experience of place. First I examine the idea that the Reformation helps to effect a shift from absolute to abstract space, or from place to space, by purging the landscape of the dramatic highs and lows of spiritual intensity characteristic of Catholicism. I further explore this claim by situating this development within the longue durée of western religious history, a succession of distinctive ‘orderings of the sacred’ which together I term the ‘long arc of monotheism’. Second, however, I argue that the Reformation did not automatically lead to the hypermodern dissolution of space and the emergence of non-places but, more positively, constituted a final overcoming of archaic religion, and the possibility of a new experience of space and place. Thirdly I thus argue for a distinctive mode of placing, one suspended between the archaic and the modern, between belonging and not belonging.
KW - religion
KW - space
KW - place
KW - culture
KW - Reformation
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9783643906380
SP - 169
EP - 183
BT - At Home in the Future
A2 - Rodwell, John
A2 - Scott, Peter Manley
PB - Lit Verlag
CY - Berlin
ER -