front cover of Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition
Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition
The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon
Regina M Marchi
Rutgers University Press, 2022
Honoring relatives by tending graves, building altars, and cooking festive meals has been a major tradition among Latin Americans for centuries. The tribute, "El Día de los Muertos," has enjoyed renewed popularity since the 1970s when Latinx activists and artists in the United States began expanding "Day of the Dead" north of the border with celebrations of performance art, Aztec danza, art exhibits, and other public expressions.
 
Focusing on the power of public ritual to serve as a communication medium, this revised and updated edition combines a mix of ethnography, historical research, oral history, and critical cultural analysis to explore the manifold and unexpected transformations that occur when the tradition is embraced by the mainstream. A testament to the complex role of media and commercial forces in constructions of ethnic identity, Day of the Dead in the USA provides insight into the power of art and ritual to create community, transmit oppositional messages, and advance educational, political, and economic goals.
 
Today Chicano-style Day of the Dead events take place in all fifty states. This revised edition provides new information about:
  • The increase in events across the US, incorporating media coverage and financial aspects,
  • Recent political movements expressed in contemporary Day of the Dead celebrations, including #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo
  • Greater media coverage and online presence of the celebration in blogs, websites, and streaming video
  • Día de los Muertos themes and iconography in video games and films 
  • The proliferation of commercialized merchandise such as home goods, apparel, face paints and jewelry at mainstream big box and web retailers, as well as the widespread proliferation of calavera-themed decorations and costumes for Halloween
  • 24 new full color illustrations

 
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front cover of Theorizing Scriptures
Theorizing Scriptures
New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon
Wimbush, Vincent
Rutgers University Press, 2008

Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence. In Western society, moreover, what counts as scripture is generally confined to the Judeo-Christian Bible, leaving the voices of minorities, as well as the holy texts of faiths from Africa and Asia, for example, unheard. 

In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent L. Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. Contributors hail from a wide array of academic fields and geographic locations and include such noted academics as Susan Harding, Elisabeth Shüssler Fiorenza, and William L. Andrews.

Purposefully transgressing disciplinary boundaries, this ambitious book opens the door to different interpretations and critical orientations, and in doing so, allows an ultimately humanist definition of scriptures to emerge.

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