American Sanctuary, Understanding Sacred Spaces (review)

Abstract

American Sanctuary, Understanding Sacred Spaces. Edited by Louis P. Nelson. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 280. $65.00 hardbound; $24.95 paperback.) This fascinating collection of essays seeks bravely to redefine the study of American sacred Its articles consciously foreground the multifarious, tracking the most varied of sacral allusions in this country's contemporary environment. Collectively they illustrate how sacred space, while perhaps undergoing an atomization due to our nation's increasingly diverse character, has far from lost its relevance to the average citizen. The case studies are broadening and often riveting. As the volume argues, American sacred practices have expanded well beyond traditional places of worship and institutionally sanctioned ritual. Thus our analytical techniques must cast a wide net as well. The editor shapes this volume around the everyday beliefs and practices of the laity, seeking to expand beyond typical definitions of the sacred such as Eliade's ontological marking of a center or the Platonic Tradition's conflation of beauty with the holy. The volume explores numerous examples that under those definitions might be considered too lightly inscribed, too sociopolitical, too unstable, or too contested to qualify traditionally as sacred space. Most intriguing about this volume is its focus on sacred space, in contrast to a more typical focus on sacred buildings. Several of the volume's most fascinating essays explore how various religious markers have been used to delimit and identify sacred precincts with little or no dependence upon, or reference to, the design of an all-encompassing, physically built surround. The Hebrew traditions of the eruv (amalgamating many dweUings into a single communal domain for ritual purposes) and the mezuzah (an exterior doorpost scroU indicating Jewish observance within the home) show communities or families subtly tracing sacred lines or gateways within otherwise undifferentiated, secular space. Contemporary expressions are contrasted with historical cases, showing how modern life can simultaneously empower and erode such non-brick-and-mortar devices. Other articles explore evocations of the sacred in wide-open spaces such as in New York's Central Park, traditionally African-American yard show displays, and cemeteries. An essay on our National Mail in Washington explores how memorials interweave the sacred with messages of politics and power and thus sociaily energize vast surrounding spaces in unstable but nonetheless potent ways. The breadth of faiths studied is another strength. …