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Religious life and public life are both passionately performed, but often understood to exclude one another. This book´s array of voices investigates the publics hailed by religious performances and the challenges they offer to theories of the democratic public sphere.

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List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Public Problem of Religious Doings; Claire Maria Chambers, Simon W. du Toit and Joshua Edelman PART I: PUBLICS AND THE NON-DEMOCRATIC STATE 1. The Market for Argument; Simon W. du Toit 2. Public Acts of Private Devotion: From Silent Prayer to Ceremonies in France´s Early Seminaries; Joy Palacios 3. The Durban Passion Play: Religious Performance, Power and Difference; Michael Lambert and Tamantha Hammerschlag Discussion PART II: VISCERAL PUBLICS 4. Church on/as Stage: Stewart Hedlam´s Rhetorical Theology; Tom Grimwood and Peter Yeandle 5. The Intolerable, Intimate Public of Contemporary American Street Preaching; Joshua Edelman 6. Faith, Fright, and Excessive Feeling; Kris Messer Discussion PART III: PUBLICS AND COMMODIFICATION 7. Congregations, Audiences, Actors: Religious Performance and the Individual in Nineteenth-Century Nottingham; Jo Robinson and Lucie Sutherland 8. Sufi Ceremonies in Private and Public; Esra €izmeci 9. From Religion to Culture: The Performative P?j? and Spectacular Religion in India; Saayan Chattopadhyay Discussion PART IV: EPHEMERAL PUBLICS 10. Coming Out of the (Confessional) Closet: Christian Performatives, Queer Performativities; Stephen D. Seely 11. Performing Jewish Sexuality: Mikvah Spaces in Orthodox Jewish Publics; Shira Schwartz 12. Busking and the Performance of Generosity: A Political Economy of the Spiritual Gift; Claire Maria Chambers Discussion

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Claire Maria Chambers, Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea Saayan Chattopadhyay, Baruipur College, Calcutta University, India Esra €izmeci, Istanbul Ayd?n University, Turkey Simon W. du Toit, University of Windsor, Canada Joshua Edelman, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK Tom Grimwood, University of Cumbria, UK Tamantha Hammerschlag, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Michael Lambert, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Kris Messer, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA Joy Palacios, Vanderbilt University´s Divinity School, USA Jo Robinson, University of Nottingham, UK Shira Schwartz, York University, Canada Stephen D. Seely, Rutgers University, USA Lucie Sutherland, University of Nottingham, UK Peter Yeandle, University of Manchester, UK

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