20th century
A01=David Chidester
african renaissance
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
animal sacrifice
Author_David Chidester
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HR
Category=QRAC
comparative religion
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
democracy
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
freedom park
healing and reconciliation
indigenous religions
Language_English
neo shamans
PA=Temporarily unavailable
Price_€20 to €50
prison gangs
PS=Active
religious diversity
religious heritage
religious historians
religious history
religious rituals
religious scholars
religious studies
robben island
sacredness
softlaunch
south africa
south african history
south african politics
spiritual dimensions
theology
traditionalism
world religion
Product details
- ISBN 9780520273085
- Weight: 363g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 23 Apr 2012
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Wild Religion is a wild ride through recent South African history from the advent of democracy in 1994 to the euphoria of the football World Cup in 2010. In the context of South Africa's political journey and religious diversity, David Chidester explores African indigenous religious heritage with a difference. As the spiritual dimension of an African Renaissance, indigenous religion has been recovered in South Africa as a national resource. Wild Religion analyzes indigenous rituals of purification on Robben Island, rituals of healing and reconciliation at the new national shrine, Freedom Park, and rituals of animal sacrifice at the World Cup. Not always in the national interest, indigenous religion also appears in the wild religious creativity of prison gangs, the global spirituality of neo-shamans, the ceremonial display of Zulu virgins, the ancient Egyptian theosophy in South Africa's Parliament, and the new traditionalism of South Africa's President Jacob Zuma.
Arguing that the sacred is produced through the religious work of intensive interpretation, formal ritualization, and intense contestation, Chidester develops innovative insights for understanding the meaning and power of religion in a changing society. For anyone interested in religion, Wild Religion uncovers surprising dynamics of sacred space, violence, fundamentalism, heritage, media, sex, sovereignty, and the political economy of the sacred.
David Chidester is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He is the author of Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture (UC Press), Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa, Christianity: A Global History, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown.
