On the Madonna of 115th Street

This is such a great book, and I had to double-check Robert Orsi’s academic background more than once, as this book cuts across disciplines: history, anthropology, and religious studies are all well-represented here.

Orsi’s primary argument here is that American Catholicism is not, and has not been, something calcified or a project that takes place exclusively within the realm of churches. Instead, Orsi seeks to look at urban, popular religion (although he eschews “popular” in favor of “lived” in the 3rd edition) to develop a better understanding of what American Catholicism is and how it connects with other varieties of religious faiths. Beyond that, there is too much taking place to comprehensively review each aspect of Orsi’s argument, but he does an excellent job of showing the many sides of Italian Catholicism in the United States.

At times, Orsi seems a bit too apathetic (?) to the sexism that occurred in the festa, giving a brief examination of it while portraying these religious rituals in a positive manner. I understand the necessity to paint religion positively, especially “lived religion” when it is so often decried as “pagan” or “un-Christian” by religious authorities, but there should have been a better attempt to portray these rituals either neutrally or skeptically.

Nevertheless, Orsi’s work here is outstanding and he’s brought unveiled an aspect of American history that I never would have thought twice about. This works well paired with other scholarship on lived religion, like The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.