Tee Vee

Kenneth MacKendrick kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Wed Oct 3 07:37:28 PDT 2001


At 09:43 AM 10/2/01 -0700, you wrote:


>Yes, and no you haven't. I have to go to gum surgery, part two, but
>here is the larger point. By the way, I never put gender into the
>mix. These icons are to the homely protestantism that I grew up with,
>as my kid's elementary school theater is to mega-cinema in surround
>sound. They are in entirely separate worlds.

I agree, politically active and socially separate. I'm not sure any other 'movement' / 'community' has been so successful, or fraught, about this. Wake up to Christian radio, read a Christian newsletter, go to a Christian job, sign a Christian petition, go to church (the kids are already there at school) help out with a volunteer foodbank, and lounge back in the evening with a prayer or worship service...


> While I focus on the US
>rightwing mega-christians, it is only because I don't know anything
>about the middle east at this level and certainly less about Judaism
>and Islam. I went looking for modernist architecture in the Middle
>East, but couldn't find much because I didn't know where to look or
>what cities. But there has to be something, some cheezy, gold and
>white modernist mosque, or some rock hard temple or some kind of
>equivalent to the Crystal Cathedral.

I can't really help you there... I find some glimpse of understanding in Talal Assad's work, esp. his book on the Genealogy of Religion ('the religious effect of culture'). I very much like William Hart's work as well (Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture). There is also Bruce Lawrence, Shattering the Myth... these aren't introductions, but provide same inroads into the enticements of politics and religion.


>All these religions came out of the desert and there is some part of
>that bareness that they all share---a kind of absolutism---hard as
>nails (or diamonds, or rocks), and merciless at heart. So I was
>looking for icons, images, expressions that form some kind of physical
>equivalent to their nastiness. I mean they all keep talking about love
>and law, but man, its a damned strange idea they have of them.

"The Truth is out there!" Maybe looking at the buildings isn't the answer, perhaps the foundations? (grin grin, you never know what you'll find in a basement). Have you considered looking at tombstones? I know you're on an architecture venture, but funeral rituals probably tell us just as much - some of those monuments are huge!


>Maybe, if the Romans had been more diligent?
>
>Chuck Grimes

Peter Brown, Authority and the Sacred. 78 pages or so, you will rarely find a more beautifully written book. It deals with the spread of Christianity in Roman life. It is a collection of three essays, and you could probably go through it in a couple of hours. No talk about architecture, but it has some insight into the forms and figures of Christianity in the fourth and fifth century.

teetering off topic, ken



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