Religion, Attire, and Adornment in North America

by Marie W Dallam (editor), Benjamin E Zeller (Editor)

Clothing, dress, and ornamentation are crucial parts of individual and communal religious life and practice, yet they are too often overlooked. This book convenes leading scholars to explore the roles of attire and adornment in the creation and communication of religious meaning, identity, and community. Contributors investigate aspects of religious dress in North America in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, considering adornment practices in a wide range of religious traditions and among individuals who straddle religious boundaries. The collection is organized around four frameworks for understanding the material culture of theological interpretation, identity formation, negotiation of tradition, and activism.

Religion, Attire, and Adornment in North America features essays on topics such as Black Israelites’ use of African fabrics, Christian religious tattoos, Wiccan ritual nudity, Amish “plain dress,” Mormon sacred garments, Hare Krishna robes, and the Church of Body Modification. Spanning the diversity of religious practice and expression, this book is suitable for a range of undergraduate courses and offers new insights for scholars in many disciplines.

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 23, 2023

Reviews

[Liz Busby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this collection as a reference for that paper about The Mandalorian and religious clothing. After the introduction, I focused mainly on the middle two sections, which talk about religious clothing for developing community and for negotiating boundaries in the community. I was, but wasn't, surprised to find two chapters dealing with Latter-day Saints. Kate Davis's chapter on missionary clothing guidelines for women vs men was too heavy on theory and light on analysis of details for my taste, but I really enjoyed Jessica Finnigan and Nancy Ross's chapter on their survey of attitudes towards wearing the temple garment, correlated by gender and "conforming/non-conforming belief." Other interesting chapters in the book include an essay on the gradual reduction in ritual nudity in Wicca, Amish fashion trends, esoteric Christian tattoos, and Black American adaptations of both Jewish and Islamic dress traditions. Really interesting collection!