Overview
In 1543, in a small village in Mexico, a group of missionary friars received from a mysterious Indian messenger an unusual carved image of Christ crucified. The friars declared it the most poignantly beautiful depiction of Christ's suffering they had ever seen. Known as the Cristo Aparecido (the ""Christ Appeared""), it quickly became one of the most celebrated religious images in colonial Mexico. Today, the Cristo Aparecido is among the oldest New World crucifixes and is the beloved patron saint of the Indians of Totolapan.In Biography of a Mexican Crucifix, Jennifer Scheper Hughes traces popular devotion to the Cristo Aparecido over five centuries of Mexican history. Each chapter investigates a single incident in the encounter between believers and the image. Through these historical vignettes, Hughes explores and reinterprets the conquest of and mission to the Indians; the birth of an indigenous, syncretic Christianity; the violent processes of independence and nationalization; and the utopian vision of liberation theology. Hughes reads all of these through the popular devotion to a crucifix that over the centuries becomes a key protagonist in shaping local history and social identity. This book will be welcomed by scholars and students of religion, Latin American history, anthropology, and theology.
Full Product Details
Author: Jennifer Scheper Hughes (Professor, Professor, University of California, Riverside)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 23.10cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780195367072
ISBN 10: 0195367073
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 18 February 2010
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
<br> This history of the five-hundred-year odyssey of a Mexican crucifix and its devotees is both scholarly and deeply respectful of local belief. Overcoming the apparent dichotomy between indigenous and Christian practices, Hughes's work shows how this and other Mexican crucifixes are profoundly part of both at the same time. This is an engaged study that allows us analytical distance and yet draws us in to grapple with the meaning it holds for religious life. <br><br>-- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Professor of Theology, Claremont Graduate University <br><p><br> Jennifer Scheper Hughes shows extraordinary interpretive skill in turning this 'biography of an object, ' the Cristo Aparecido of Totolapan, into a scholarly revelation of complex religious devotion in Mexico. Combining the sharpness of a detective story with a new kind of historical writing, humanity and agency are given to all the participants - Spanish priests, indigenous parishioners and historians too! Readers are led to 'draw nearer' to a richer and deeper understanding of how the 'Christ Appeared' stays alive over centuries, through rivalry and violence, tenderness and affection, in the souls of indigenous Mexico. This book is first rate and compelling, humane and scholarly, respectful and insistent, innovative and grounded in the best historical writing of the last decades. <br><br>-- Dav d Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America, Harvard University <br><p><br>
<br> This history of the five-hundred-year odyssey of a Mexican crucifix and its devotees is both scholarly and deeply respectful of local belief. Overcoming the apparent dichotomy between indigenous and Christian practices, Hughes's work shows how this and other Mexican crucifixes are profoundly part of both at the same time. This is an engaged study that allows us analytical distance and yet draws us in to grapple with the meaning it holds for religious life. <br>-- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Professor of Theology, Claremont Graduate University <br><p><br> Jennifer Scheper Hughes shows extraordinary interpretive skill in turning this 'biography of an object, ' the Cristo Aparecido of Totolapan, into a scholarly revelation of complex religious devotion in Mexico. Combining the sharpness of a detective story with a new kind of historical writing, humanity and agency are given to all the participants - Spanish priests, indigenous parishioners and historians too! Readers are led to '
<br> This history of the five-hundred-year odyssey of a Mexican crucifix and its devotees is both scholarly and deeply respectful of local belief. Overcoming the apparent dichotomy between indigenous and Christian practices, Hughes's work shows how this and other Mexican crucifixes are profoundly part of both at the same time. This is an engaged study that allows us analytical distance and yet draws us in to grapple with the meaning it holds for religious life. <br>-- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Professor of Theology, Claremont Graduate University <br> Jennifer Scheper Hughes shows extraordinary interpretive skill in turning this 'biography of an object, ' the Cristo Aparecido of Totolapan, into a scholarly revelation of complex religious devotion in Mexico. Combining the sharpness of a detective story with a new kind of historical writing, humanity and agency are given to all the participants - Spanish priests, indigenous parishioners and historians too! Readers are led to 'dr
Author Information
Jennifer Scheper Hughes is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at University of California, Riverside.
