Title Landscapes of the secular : law, religion, and American sacred space / Nicolas Howe

Published Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2016

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Description 1 online resource Contents Landscapes of secular law -- Church, state, and the tyranny of feelings -- Performing the constitutional landscape -- The spiritual gaze -- Sanctity, if you will -- Looking askance at the sacred Summary What does it mean to see the American landscape in a secular way?" asks Nicolas Howe at the outset of this innovative, ambitious, and wide-ranging book. It's a surprising question because of what it implies: we usually aren't seeing American landscapes through a non-religious lens, but rather as inflected by complicated, little-examined concepts of the sacred. Fusing geography, legal scholarship, and religion in a potent analysis, Howe shows how seemingly routine questions about how to look at a sunrise or a plateau or how to assess what a mountain is both physically and ideologically, lead to complex arguments about the nature of religious experience and its implications for our lives as citizens. In American society nominally secular but committed to permitting a diversity of religious beliefs and expressions such questions become all the more fraught and can lead to difficult, often unsatisfying compromises about how to interpret and inhabit our public lands and spaces. A serious commitment to secularism, Howe shows, forces us to confront the profound challenges of true religious diversity in ways that often will have their ultimate expression in our built environment. This provocative exploration of some of the fundamental aspects of American life will help us see the land, law, and society anew Notes "Chapter 3 has been revised and expanded from a previously published article by Nicolas Howe, "Thou Shalt Not Misinterpret: Landscape as Legal Performance," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, April 15, 2008." Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Religion and state -- United States Religion and law -- United States Secularism -- United States Cultural landscapes -- United States Landscapes -- Religious aspects. Environmentalism -- Religious aspects. Church and state -- United States POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Process -- Political Advocacy. Church and state Cultural landscapes Environmentalism -- Religious aspects Landscapes -- Religious aspects Religion and law Religion and state Secularism Öffentlicher Raum Religion United States USA Form Electronic book ISBN 9780226376806 022637680X

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