Religion in the Américas
Religion in the Américas
Trans-hemispheric and Transcultural Approaches
Religion in the Américas explores the fluid, dynamic, and complex nature of religion across Latin America and its diasporic communities in the United States. Utilizing a transdisciplinary and trans-hemispheric lens, this groundbreaking anthology transcends traditional scholarly boundaries—geographical, disciplinary, and temporal—as it explores ideas and cultural practices that share a common history of Iberian colonialism.
This robust collection of essays forges a dialogue among scholars throughout the Americas who represent a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The book is divided into five sections: “Fluidity in the Afro-Latine Diaspora,” “Aesthetics in Las Américas,” “Critical Feminist Epistemologies and Activism,” “The Limits of Institutional Religion,” and “Spiritual Invasions and Contagions.” Throughout the volume, the concept of “experience” serves as a foundational lens, as chapters examine how individuals and communities actively interpret and negotiate their realities within diverse historical and social contexts.
Focusing on religion as a culturally conditioned epistemic practice, Religion in the Américas invites readers to engage with religion in the Americas on multiple, intersecting levels of knowledge, including local insights, scholarly analyses, and the positionality and queries of readers themselves. The book’s dialogical approach encourages not only continual reevaluation of the complexities of religious experience in the Americas but also creative innovation that will inspire new avenues of inquiry.
A superb, engaging, and vitally important work that navigates across and connects geographic borders while highlighting the richness, complexity, and fluid correspondence of Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latinx religious experience and expression.’—Benjamin Valentin, coeditor of The Ties that Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue
Christopher D. Tirres holds the Michael J. Buckley Endowed Chair at Santa Clara University. He is the author of Liberating Spiritualities: Reimagining Faith in the Américas and The Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith: A Dialogue between Liberationist and Pragmatic Thought.
Jessica L. Delgado is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and history at Ohio State University. She is the author of Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain, 1630–1790.
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Religion in the Américas
Christopher D. Tirres and Jessica L. Delgado
Part I. Fluidity in the Afro-Latine Diaspora
Chapter 1. Our Ladies of the 305
Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado
Chapter 2. Quimbanda and Ritual Polyphony in Minas Gerais, Brazil
Cristina Borges, Alexandre F. S. Kaitel, Guaraci M. Dos Santos, and Steven Engler
Chapter 3. Playful Masculinity: Labor, Relaxation, and Gender Formation in Loíza’s Las Fiesta de Santiago Apóstol
Alejandro S. Escalante
Part II. Aesthetics in Las Américas
Chapter 4. ¡Mira, pa ya en el cielo!: The Amazing Decolonial and Theological Adventures of La Borinqueña
Joel Morales Cruz
Chapter 5. Rockin’ the Habit: Colliding Cultural Identities and a Peruvian Nuns’ Rock Band
Ann Hidalgo
Chapter 6. The Afro Cuban Sense of Magic in Osha-Ifá: Its Representation in National Literature and the Visual Arts
Axel Presas
Part III. Critical Feminist Epistemologies and Activism
Chapter 7. Sacred Motherhood in the Sanctuary Movement: Marian Imagery and the Family Fight for Immigrant Justice
Lloyd D. Barba and Tatyana Castillo-Ramos
Chapter 8. Subversive Indigenous Feminist Epistemologies: A Methodological Reflection on El Mercado/Qhathu
Cecilia Titizano
Chapter 9. Anzaldúa2: Beyond (in) Anzaldúa
Laura E. Pérez
Part IV. Complicating Institutional Religion
Chapter 10. Liberation Theology and Its Limits in the Peruvian Andes
Matthew Casey-Pariseault
Chapter 11. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo in a Chapel of Mendoza: A Church that is Victimizer and Victim, Catholic and Subversive
Ernesto Fiocchetto
Chapter 12. From Gang Leaders to Church Leaders: Masculine Ideals among Peruvian Criminals Converting to Pentecostalism
Véronique Lecaros
Part V. Spiritual Invasions and Contagions
Chapter 13. Immunity, and Other Holy Things
Paul Ramírez
Chapter 14. Contagious Women and Spiritual Status in Colonial Latin America: A Theoretical Proposal
Jessica L. Delgado
Chapter 15. Spectral Comrades and Comandantes: Latinx Hauntology and the Day of the Dead in Orange County, CA
Daisy Vargas and Jennifer Scheper Hughes
Contributors
