Thomas Coomans

Jan De Maeyer

Herman De Dijn

Bert Verschaffel

Sacred places are not static entities but reveal a historical dynamic. This volume explores both the cultural developments that have shaped them and their varied multidimensional levels of significance.

Understanding Sacred Places

Loci Sacri

Paul Wynants

De Vincentianen in België, 1842-1992

Urs Altermatt

Franziska Metzger

A broad perspective on the role of religious institutes in social and cultural practices This volume examines the cultural contribution of religious institutes, men and women religious, and their role in the constitution of Catholic communities of communication in different European countries (England, Germany, Liechtenstein, the Low Countries, the Nordic Countries, Switzerland). The articles focus on social and cultural history by comparing both discourses and cultural and social practices, as well as examining international networks and cultural transference. How did religious institutes function as cultural elites in the production and mediation of knowledge, ideologies, cultural codes, and practices? What kind of discursive and operational strategies did they use to help construct and propagate social Catholicism, ultramontanism, and confessionalism, and to establish and promote the Catholic communication system? What were the central mechanisms in the production of knowledge and how were they incorporated within identity politics? The volume also takes a broad perspective on the role of religious institutes in the production and propagation of religious, cultural, and social practices, and in the socialisation of the Catholic population. The focus is on cultural practices, on the transmission and transformation of attitudes, and on the rites and customs in everyday religious and social practices.

Religious Institutes and Catholic Culture in 19th- and 20th-Century Europe

Peter Jan Margry

The long nineteenth century (c.1780–c.1920) in Western Europe saw an unprecedented rise in the production and possession of material goods. The material culture diversified and led to a rich variety of expressions. Dovetailing with a process of confessionalisation that manifested itself quite simultaneously, material religion witnessed its heyday in this period; from church buildings to small devotional objects. The present volume analyses how various types of reform (state, societal, and ecclesiastical) that were part of the process of modernisation affected the material devotional culture within Protestantism, Anglicanism, and Roman Catholicism. Although the contributions in this book start from a comparative European perspective, the case studies mostly focus on individual countries in North-West Europe, namely Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The concept of ‘material religion’ is approached in a very inclusive way. The volume discusses, amongst others, parish infrastructures and religious buildings that are part of land and cityscapes, but also looks into interior design and decorations of chapels, churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and educational, charitable, and health institutions. It comprises the fine arts of religious painting and sculpture, the applied arts, and iconographic designs. As far as private material culture is concerned, this volume examines and presents objects related to private devotion at home, including a great variety of popular devotional and everyday life objects, such as booklets, cards, photographs, and posters.

The Impact of Reform and Modernity on Material Religion in North-West Europe, 1780-1920

Material Change

Bram Cleys

Allen M. Howard

Bruno De Meulder

Situated at the crossroads of missionary history, imperial history, and colonial architecture, the contributions in this volume investigate the architectural staging and spatial implications of the worldwide expansion of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By looking at specific architectural fragments, analysing the insertion of Christian edifices in colonial urban settings, or unravelling the social understanding of missionary places, each of the chapters contemplates an aspect of the agency of mission spaces. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, this book approaches missionary places not as the mere décor against which the missionary encounter was enacted, but as an integral part of it. In doing so, the contributors test the applicability of the spatial turn, an interpretative paradigm that has been dominant across the humanities since the late 1990s, to missionary historiography. Richly illustrated and with a global focus, the volume addresses case studies from, among other countries, China, Japan, Madagascar, Congo, Tanzania, Ghana, and Lebanon.

Imagining, Building, Contesting Christianities

Missionary Places, 1850-1950

Leen Meganck

Linda Van Santvoort

In this book, internationally-renowned researchers investigate the complex and shifting relation between regionalism and modernity in the architecture of Western Europe between the two World Wars.

Architecture in Western Europe, 1914-1940

Regionalism and Modernity

Vincent Viaene

Religion in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo has many faces: from the overflowing seminaries and Marian shrines of the Catholic Church to the Islamic brotherhoods, from the healers of Kimban-guism to the televangelism of the booming Pentecostalist churches in the great cities, from the Orthodox communities of Kasai to the ‘invisible’ Mai Mai warriors in the brousse of Kivu. During the colonial period religion was no less central to people’s lives than it is today. More surprisingly, behind the seemingly smooth facade of missions linked closely to imperial power, faith and worship were already marked by diversity and dynamism, tying the Congo into broader African and global movements. The contributions in this book provide insight into the multifaceted history of the interaction between religion and colonization. The authors outline the institutional political framework, and focus on the challenge that old and new forms of slavery entailed for the missions. The atrocities committed at the time of the Congo Free State became an existential question for young Christian communities. In the Belgian Congo after 1908, more structural forms of colonial violence remained a key issue marking religious experiences. And yet, religion also acted as a bridge. The authors emphasize the role intermediaries such as catechists or medical assistants played in the African “appropriation” of Christianity. They examine the complex interaction with indigenous religious beliefs and practices, and zoom in on the part religions played in the independence movement, as well as on their reaction to independence itself. Coming at a moment when Belgium confronts its colonial past, this volume provides a timely reassessment of religion as a key factor.

Religion, Colonization and Decolonization in Congo, 1885-1960. Religion, colonisation et décolonisation au Congo, 1885-1960

De Sint-Lucasscholen en de neogotiek, 1862-1914

Timothy Brittain-Catlin

Martin Bressani 

Pugin’s global influence on church architecture and material reform The year 2012 marked the bicentenary of the gothic revival architect A.W.N. Pugin. His influence as a designer not only spread fast globally, but also played a leading part in the transformation of material culture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Pugin’s work has been comprehensively reevaluated over the last decade. In this volume sixteen leading scholars from across the globe discuss Pugin’s direct influence on church architecture and furnishing. Beautifully illustrated with a large selection of new photography, Gothic Revival Worldwide, the successor to the volume Gothic Revival published in 2000, reveals how Pugin’s ideas played a profound role in the changing face of material reform in church architecture as an expression of the evolving identity of the churches across the world from North America to Mongolia and the South Pacific. Contributors Stephen Bann (Bristol University), Jessica Basciano (University of St. Thomas, Houston), G.A. Bremner (University of Edinburgh), Martin Bressani (McGill University, Montréal), Karen Burns (University of Melbourne), Timothy Brittain-Catlin (University of Kent), Peter Coffman (Carleton University, Ottawa), Thomas Coomans (KU Leuven), Jan De Maeyer (KU Leuven / KADOC), Candace Iron (York University, Toronto), Stephen Kite (Cardiff University, Wales), Alex Lawrey (independent scholar), Peter N. Lindfield (University of Stirling), Cameron Macdonell (Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich), M. Stephen McNair, Jr. (McNair Historic Preservation), Gilles Maury (École National Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage, Lille), Henrik Schoenefeldt (University of Kent), Richard A. Sundt (University of Oregon), Malcolm Thurlby (York University, Toronto)

A.W.N. Pugin’s Global Influence

Gothic Revival Worldwide

mediawijsheid in tijden van fake news

N(i)et echt!

Jan De Maeyer

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