Description
Book SynopsisExplores the dynamics of shared religious sites in Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus, and Algeria
Trade ReviewA most welcome addition to the growing literature on sharing sacred spaces in the eastern Mediterranean, with special reference to practices of coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman traditions. This collection goes beyond the dilemma of 'peaceful coexistence and syncretic practices' versus 'antagonism and conflict.' Contributions focus on interreligious relations during the transition from empire to nation and on present-day practices from Algeria to Turkey and from Bosnia to Cyprus and Israel/Palestine. They emphasize the role of political and religious actors in transforming antagonism into peaceful coexistence. -- Maria Couroucli, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et Sociologie Comparative Sacred sites are ideally intimate possessions, inviolable and holy. Sharing them with other communities is like splitting an atom. This timely collection allows readers to examine the choreographies of theological politics and political theologies scripted to contain potential eruptions of violence, and these highly readable case studies will fuel discussions of the post-Ottoman era for many years to come. -- Charles Stewart, University College London Coming from a range of disciplines, the essays in Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites are compelling for specialists in interreligious relations, conflict resolution and peace studies, and religious ethnography. They are also engaging and accessible to a general audience concerned with the related issues of pluralism, coexistence, conflict, and tolerance. Understanding the complexity of shared sites is essential to grasping the ways multiple religions jointly inhabit this plural world. A valuable and timely volume in a field critical to the present moment in history. -- Anna Bigelow, North Carolina State University
Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey 1. Religious Pluralism, Shared Sacred Sites, and the Ottoman Empire, by Karen Barkey Comparisons: Cyprus/Bosnia/Anatolia/Algiers 2. Three Ways of Sharing the Sacred: Choreographies of Coexistence in Cyprus, by Mete Hatay 3. Religious Antagonism and Shared Sanctuaries in Algeria, by Dionigi Albera 4. Contested Choreographies of Sacred Spaces in Muslim Bosnia, by David Henig Palestine/Israel 5. At the Boundaries of the Sacred: The Reinvention of Everyday Life in Jerusalem's al-Wad Street, by Wendy Pullan 6. The Politics of Ownership: State, Governance, and the Status Quo in the Church of the Anastasis (Holy Sepulchre), by Glenn Bowman 7. Choreographing Upheaval: The Politics of Sacred Sites in the West Bank, by Elazar Barkan 8. The Impact of Conflicts Over Holy Sites on City Images and Landscapes: The Case of Nazareth, by Rassem Khamaisi Museums 9. Tolerance Versus Holiness: The Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance and the Mamilla Muslim Cemetery, by Yitzhak Reiter 10. Secularizing the Unsecularizable: A Comparative Study of the Haci Bektas and Mevlana Museums in Turkey, by Rabia Harmansah, Tugba Tanyeri-Erdemir, and Robert M. Hayden Bibliography Contributors Index
