Urban Religious Events

Paul Bramadat is Professor and Director at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, Canada.Mar Griera is Associate Professor and Director at the ISOR Research Centre, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.Julia Martinez-Ariño is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.Marian Burchardt is Professor of Sociology at Leipzig University, Germany.

• 1. IntroductionPart 1: After the Secular City: Religion and Urban Effervescence2. Religion in the Street: A popular neighborhood in Mexico City, Hugo José Suárez (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico)3. Staging Green Spirituality in the Parks of Lausanne and Geneva: A Spatial Approach to Urban Ecological Festivals, Irene Becci (Université de Lausanne, Switzerland) and Salomé Okoekpen4. Constructing a Religioscape: The Case of Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow, Nadezda Rychkova (Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia)5. Festivals of Religions and Religious Festivals: Heritigized Heterotopias, Alberta Giorgi (University of Bergamo, Italy) and Mariachiara Giorda (Roma Tre University, Italy)Part 2: The Politics of Religion in Urban Spaces: Power and Symbolism in the City6. A Bridge Too Far: Yoga, Spirituality, and Contested Space in the Pacific Northwest, Paul Bramadat (University of Victoria, Canada)7. “It’s the first Sukkah since the Inquisition!”: Jewish Celebrations in Public Spaces in Barcelona, Julia Martínez-Ariño (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)8. Spatial Discourses of Sanctity as Means of Struggle and Empowerment in a Contested City, Nimrod Luz (Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel)9. Decoding Strategic Secularism in Madrid: Religion as Ambience in Three Scenarios, Monica Cornejo-Valle (Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain)Part 3: Public Religious Rituals, Urban Transcendence and Embodied Spirituality10. Urbi et Orbi: Pope Benedict’s Visit to Berlin and the Emplacement of Communicative Events, Hubert Knoblauch (TU Berlin, Germany)11. Turning Spirituality into a Public Event: the Popularization of Collective Meditations and Mindfulness Marches in the Urban Space, Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), Anna Clot-Garrell (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)12. God’s Warriors: Embodying Evangelical Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Rio de Janeiro, Raphael Schapira (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Switzerland)13. Feeling Sufis: An essay on Intimate Religion in Berlin, Omar Kasmani (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)14. Epilogue, Sophie Watson (The Open University, UK)BibliographyIndex

Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces is a truly enjoyable read. The lively writing creates a vivid picture of processions, festivals and spectacles from Moscow to Rio de Janeiro and Madrid. The innovative concept of ‘urban religious events’ provides a convincing overall prism for analysis of events from lighting the hanukkiah in Barcelona, to jiu-jitsu parades in Brazil and practicing yoga on a bridge in Vancouver.