Elayne Oliphant
Biographic Data
| ID | 101373 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elayne Oliphant |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elayne |
| FAMILY NAME | Oliphant |
| SIGNATURE | OLIPHANT E |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Double Bond of Catholic Abolition: Christianity, Chattel Slavery, and Racial Capitalism
The reign of the first Pope to originate in the former colonies of the modern Euro-Christian empires calls us into awareness of the layers of interconnection between the Roman Catholic Church and the long “wake” (Sharpe 2016) of 1492. As anthropologists, I argue, our studies of Catholic practices must be informed by a detailed awareness of this history. I offer a broad historical view of how the Roman Catholic Church participated and, at times, l…
Density and domination: Catholic materiality and the workings of history in Paris
The question whether Europe's Christian churches and monasteries are "religious" or "secular" distracts us from something far more significant: Europe's historical participation in systems of enslavement and expropriation. While these solid buildings seem to demand that we pay attention to them in their "density," such a focus overlooks their role in reaffirming the boundaries and morality of the dominant group, which, in France, is formed throug…
The secular and the global: Rethinking the anthropology of Christianity in the wake of 1492
In this article, I call for anthropologists of Christianity to do more to address the 'difference' that 1492 has made in Christian institutions, practices, and social worlds. In so doing, I argue the most significant condition constraining critical analyses of Christianity is not modernity's secularity, but, what Jared Hickman has called its 'global' condition. I push back against attempts to integrate Christian theology into anthropological anal…
The Privilege of Being Banal: Art, Secularism, and Catholicism in Paris
Christ in the Banlieues: The Passionate Infrastructure of the French Catholic Church
In this essay, I analyze the efforts of a French Roman Catholic organization committed to reproducing the ubiquity of Roman Catholic built space in the landscapes of Paris and its suburbs. Over its nearly 100-year-existence, the “Cardinal’s Construction Site” has variously advertised its efforts as those necessary to combat communism, modernism, and secular apathy. I argue that its labors demonstrate how two concepts central to the anthropologica…
Debts
NARRATIVES recounting the origins of capitalism and secularism have much in common. Both are generally perceived as what Charles Taylor (2007) has called “subtraction tales.” They are the blank slates that remain once the particularities of religion and local modes of exchange and indebtedness are removed. A number of scholars have highlighted how secularism, in Kathryn Lofton’s terms, “is not the least bit minimal in its engagements, classificat…
Beyond blasphemy or devotion: Art, the secular, and Catholicism in Paris
In this article I explore the relationship between the secular and 'cultural' Catholicism in France through the lens of a contemporary art exhibit displayed at a new project of the French Catholic Church. Visitors' varied responses to the exhibit, I argue, ultimately reinforced the organizers' claim that the activities that occur within this 'non-religious' space of the French church are self-evident aspects of a broadly recognizable and 'secular…
The crucifix as a symbol of secular Europe: The surprising semiotics of the European Court of Human Rights (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
In March of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled counter to current trends found in many European courts and legislatures as the ECHR affirmed the right of the Italian state to display crucifixes on the walls of its public school classrooms. Those who succeeded in arguing for the presence of crucifixes in Italian classrooms did so not by advocating for the now entrenched human right of the freedom of religious expression, but by …
Beyond blasphemy or devotion: Art, the secular, and Catholicism in Paris
In this article I explore the relationship between the secular and 'cultural' Catholicism in France through the lens of a contemporary art exhibit displayed at a new project of the French Catholic Church. Visitors' varied responses to the exhibit, I argue, ultimately reinforced the organizers' claim that the activities that occur within this 'non-religious' space of the French church are self-evident aspects of a broadly recognizable and 'secular…
The secular and the global: Rethinking the anthropology of Christianity in the wake of 1492
In this article, I call for anthropologists of Christianity to do more to address the 'difference' that 1492 has made in Christian institutions, practices, and social worlds. In so doing, I argue the most significant condition constraining critical analyses of Christianity is not modernity's secularity, but, what Jared Hickman has called its 'global' condition. I push back against attempts to integrate Christian theology into anthropological anal…
The crucifix as a symbol of secular Europe: The surprising semiotics of the European Court of Human Rights (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
In March of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled counter to current trends found in many European courts and legislatures as the ECHR affirmed the right of the Italian state to display crucifixes on the walls of its public school classrooms. Those who succeeded in arguing for the presence of crucifixes in Italian classrooms did so not by advocating for the now entrenched human right of the freedom of religious expression, but by …
Christ in the Banlieues: The Passionate Infrastructure of the French Catholic Church
In this essay, I analyze the efforts of a French Roman Catholic organization committed to reproducing the ubiquity of Roman Catholic built space in the landscapes of Paris and its suburbs. Over its nearly 100-year-existence, the “Cardinal’s Construction Site” has variously advertised its efforts as those necessary to combat communism, modernism, and secular apathy. I argue that its labors demonstrate how two concepts central to the anthropologica…
The crucifix as a symbol of secular Europe: The surprising semiotics of the European Court of Human Rights (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
In March of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled counter to current trends found in many European courts and legislatures as the ECHR affirmed the right of the Italian state to display crucifixes on the walls of its public school classrooms. Those who succeeded in arguing for the presence of crucifixes in Italian classrooms did so not by advocating for the now entrenched human right of the freedom of religious expression, but by …
Beyond blasphemy or devotion: Art, the secular, and Catholicism in Paris
In this article I explore the relationship between the secular and 'cultural' Catholicism in France through the lens of a contemporary art exhibit displayed at a new project of the French Catholic Church. Visitors' varied responses to the exhibit, I argue, ultimately reinforced the organizers' claim that the activities that occur within this 'non-religious' space of the French church are self-evident aspects of a broadly recognizable and 'secular…
Christ in the Banlieues: The Passionate Infrastructure of the French Catholic Church
In this essay, I analyze the efforts of a French Roman Catholic organization committed to reproducing the ubiquity of Roman Catholic built space in the landscapes of Paris and its suburbs. Over its nearly 100-year-existence, the “Cardinal’s Construction Site” has variously advertised its efforts as those necessary to combat communism, modernism, and secular apathy. I argue that its labors demonstrate how two concepts central to the anthropologica…
Debts
NARRATIVES recounting the origins of capitalism and secularism have much in common. Both are generally perceived as what Charles Taylor (2007) has called “subtraction tales.” They are the blank slates that remain once the particularities of religion and local modes of exchange and indebtedness are removed. A number of scholars have highlighted how secularism, in Kathryn Lofton’s terms, “is not the least bit minimal in its engagements, classificat…
The Privilege of Being Banal: Art, Secularism, and Catholicism in Paris
The secular and the global: Rethinking the anthropology of Christianity in the wake of 1492
In this article, I call for anthropologists of Christianity to do more to address the 'difference' that 1492 has made in Christian institutions, practices, and social worlds. In so doing, I argue the most significant condition constraining critical analyses of Christianity is not modernity's secularity, but, what Jared Hickman has called its 'global' condition. I push back against attempts to integrate Christian theology into anthropological anal…
Density and domination: Catholic materiality and the workings of history in Paris
The question whether Europe's Christian churches and monasteries are "religious" or "secular" distracts us from something far more significant: Europe's historical participation in systems of enslavement and expropriation. While these solid buildings seem to demand that we pay attention to them in their "density," such a focus overlooks their role in reaffirming the boundaries and morality of the dominant group, which, in France, is formed throug…
The Double Bond of Catholic Abolition: Christianity, Chattel Slavery, and Racial Capitalism
The reign of the first Pope to originate in the former colonies of the modern Euro-Christian empires calls us into awareness of the layers of interconnection between the Roman Catholic Church and the long “wake” (Sharpe 2016) of 1492. As anthropologists, I argue, our studies of Catholic practices must be informed by a detailed awareness of this history. I offer a broad historical view of how the Roman Catholic Church participated and, at times, l…
Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Religious Studies (4 works) · Religious studies (4 works) · History (3 works)