Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred

by Peter Jan Margry (Editor)

The modern pilgrimage—to sites ranging from Graceland to the veterans’ annual ride to to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to Jim Morrison’s Paris grave—is intertwined with man’s existential uncertainties in the face of a rapidly changing world. In a climate that reproduces the religious quest in seemingly secular places, it’s no longer clear exactly what the term pilgrimage infers—and Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World critiques our notions of the secular and the sacred, while commenting on the modern media’s multiplication of images that renders the modern pilgrimage a quest without an object. Using new ethnographical and theoretical approaches, this volume offers a surprising new vision on the non-secularity of the “secular” pilgrimage.

 


"This book will be sure to stoke our intellectual fire and heat up the discussion over the highly charged topic of secular pilgrimage.”—Simon Bronner, Penn State University

 

Genres: Nonfiction

364 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2008

About the author

Peter Jan Margry is hoogleraar Europese etnologie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam en senior onderzoeker bij het Meertens Instituut. Eerder schreef hij samen met Charles Caspers 101 Bedevaartplaatsen in Nederland.