Built with Faith
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€64.99
Regular price
€83.99
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A01=Joseph Sciorra
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architecture
Author_Joseph Sciorra
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Built with Faith
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HRCC7
Category=JBCC2
Category=JFCD
Category=QRMB1
Christmas house displays
communal sites
community-based sacred spaces
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
devotional art
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnic building traditions
ethnically infused religiosity
ethnographic study
everyday life
expressive culture
folk aesthetics
folk art
Italian American Catholics
Italian immigrant Catholics
Joseph Sciorra
Language_English
material culture
museum and gallery walls
Nativity presepi
neighborhood processions
New York City
PA=Available
place-centric study
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
public ceremonial display
religious and cultural landscapes
religious material culture
religious practices
sidewalk altars
softlaunch
stone-studded grotto
U.S.-born Catholics
urban ethnic landscapes
urban space transformation
value and meaning
yard shrines
Product details
- ISBN 9781621901198
- Weight: 760g
- Dimensions: 182 x 259mm
- Publication Date: 27 Feb 2015
- Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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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.
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, USA. He is the author of R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art and editor of Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives.
