Alone Before God

The Religious Origins of Modernity in Mexico

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Church, Church & State, History, Americas, Mexico, Church History
Cover of the book Alone Before God by Pamela Voekel, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Pamela Voekel ISBN: 9780822384298
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: August 30, 2002
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Pamela Voekel
ISBN: 9780822384298
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: August 30, 2002
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Focusing on cemetery burials in late-eighteenth-century Mexico, Alone Before God provides a window onto the contested origins of modernity in Mexico. By investigating the religious and political debates surrounding the initiative to transfer the burials of prominent citizens from urban to suburban cemeteries, Pamela Voekel challenges the characterization of Catholicism in Mexico as an intractable and monolithic institution that had to be forcibly dragged into the modern world.
Drawing on the archival research of wills, public documents, and other texts from late-colonial and early-republican Mexico, Voekel describes the marked scaling-down of the pomp and display that had characterized baroque Catholic burials and the various devices through which citizens sought to safeguard their souls in the afterlife. In lieu of these baroque practices, the new enlightened Catholics, claims Voekel, expressed a spiritually and hygienically motivated preference for extremely simple burial ceremonies, for burial outside the confines of the church building, and for leaving their earthly goods to charity. Claiming that these changes mirrored a larger shift from an external, corporate Catholicism to a more interior piety, she demonstrates how this new form of Catholicism helped to initiate a cultural and epistemic shift that placed the individual at the center of knowledge.
Breaking with the traditional historiography to argue that Mexican liberalism had deeply religious roots, Alone Before God will be of interest to specialists in Latin American history, modernity, and religion.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Focusing on cemetery burials in late-eighteenth-century Mexico, Alone Before God provides a window onto the contested origins of modernity in Mexico. By investigating the religious and political debates surrounding the initiative to transfer the burials of prominent citizens from urban to suburban cemeteries, Pamela Voekel challenges the characterization of Catholicism in Mexico as an intractable and monolithic institution that had to be forcibly dragged into the modern world.
Drawing on the archival research of wills, public documents, and other texts from late-colonial and early-republican Mexico, Voekel describes the marked scaling-down of the pomp and display that had characterized baroque Catholic burials and the various devices through which citizens sought to safeguard their souls in the afterlife. In lieu of these baroque practices, the new enlightened Catholics, claims Voekel, expressed a spiritually and hygienically motivated preference for extremely simple burial ceremonies, for burial outside the confines of the church building, and for leaving their earthly goods to charity. Claiming that these changes mirrored a larger shift from an external, corporate Catholicism to a more interior piety, she demonstrates how this new form of Catholicism helped to initiate a cultural and epistemic shift that placed the individual at the center of knowledge.
Breaking with the traditional historiography to argue that Mexican liberalism had deeply religious roots, Alone Before God will be of interest to specialists in Latin American history, modernity, and religion.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Love and Good Reasons by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Body and Nation by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Do the Americas Have a Common Literature? by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book A White Side of Black Britain by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Global Climate Change by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Becoming Beside Ourselves by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Governing Indigenous Territories by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Surfer Girls in the New World Order by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Only the Road / Solo el Camino by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Terrifying Muslims by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book The Male Pill by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Monsters and Revolutionaries by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book Homeowners and Neighborhood Reinvestment by Pamela Voekel
Cover of the book From the Margins by Pamela Voekel
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy