CITIES OF GODS

Study of the interplay between cities and religion.

Comparative religion scholar Rüpke provides a comprehensive yet cumbersome review of how religions contributed to the development of cities, while cities also shaped religions. The author explores this reciprocal history through various thematic lenses, including the construction of monuments, questions of equality/inequality, death within urban areas, property ownership, and aesthetics. More broadly, three terms are employed by the author throughout this study that inform the work overall: urbanity, constellations, and ambivalence. At best, Rüpke’s definition of these terms as they apply to his research are ambiguous, but they appear throughout the text as a whole. Urbanity, to Rüpke, is the “ethos” that differentiates a city from other concentrated masses of people. The city is a city because of its urbanity, its residents’ self-recognition as a shared urban space. Constellations refer to related collections of social and religious concepts or entities making up a particular urban landscape; in the author’s words, “I am looking for shared mechanisms or constellations of mutual influence within very different local and historical constellations.” Ambivalence, in this context, references the many ways in which neither cities nor religions can be absolutely defined. Herein lies a problem for the author and the reader: Both the idea of the city and the idea of religion are so bulky, diverse, and multifaceted that concrete conclusions regarding either can be elusive. Overall, Rüpke succeeds in his attempt to identify religions as “the answer to a question that arises only in cities. They emerge from the attempt to live together in cities differently than in rural environments.” Nevertheless, the author has tackled a far-reaching topic that may tend to overwhelm and confuse the lay reader.

Admirable attempt to tackle a ponderous thesis.