Everyday Sacred

"Over the last decade there has been ongoing public discussion about religion in Quebecois society, which flared up again following the proposed Charter of Quebec Values in 2014. Everyday Sacred emerged during this active and sometimes tense period of debate. Each of its chapters provides a textured, localized study that is attentive to complexity and multivocality-both in terms of people's experiences of religion and more broadly with regard to conventional categories in the study of religion. Major themes across the chapters include: the dynamics of intergenerational transmission and institutionalism; the intersection of religion/secularism with claims of a 'distinctive' identity; the bodily and material aspects of religion; the impact of gender on internal community dynamics and debates in the public sphere; and the rise of more flexible religious hybridity and sociality that emphasize new technologies in transnational or online networks. Through these themes, contributors define religion more holistically, troubling familiar dichotomies between Catholics and the rest, "founding" and immigrant religions, "New Religious Movements" and traditional institutions. As the first English-language volume devoted to examining religion in contemporary Quebec, Everyday Sacred marks the beginning of a more sustained conversation between scholars of contemporary religion, inside and outside la belle province."--