 | |
List Price: $17.95 | | Publisher: Yale University Press
Salesrank: 293637
|
| Our Price: $10.00 |
| Used Price: $4.29 |
|
| Media: Paperback |
|
Editorial Review:
In a masterful evocation of Italian Harlem and the men and women who lived there, Robert Orsi examines how the annual festa of the Madonna of 115th Street both influenced and reflected the lives of the celebrants. His prize-winning book offers a new perspective on lived religion, the place of religion in the everyday lives of men, women, and children, the experiences of immigration and community formation, and American Catholicism. This edition includes a new introduction by the author that outlines both the changes that Italian Harlem has undergone in recent years and significant shifts in the field of religious history. Awarded the Alpha Sigma Nu National Book Prize (sponsored by Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States) for outstanding book in the humanities. Winner of the 1986 American Catholic Historical Association's John Gilmary Shea Prize.
The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, Second Edition Reviews:
A highwayscribery "Book Report" 
2009-10-09 - Like the many penitents he renders, Robert Orsi sees all things in "The Madonna of 115th Street."
A scholar of things religious, and connoisseur of matters Italian-American, Orsi combines these two interests so that one defines and explains the other.
To the uninitiated, the Madonna of Mount Carmel is just a statue like countless others throughout Europe and the Americas that interprets the Virgin Mary in plaster relief.
But in Orsi's erudite hands La Madonna (and the faith she engenders) becomes an analytical tool that unlocks doors to discussion on Italian-American family life, the role of work, the trials of immigration, the history of colonization in the old country, and, of course, food.
His base of scholarly operations is the now-vanished Italian East Harlem, but those raised in the culture will recognize themselves, their families, and neighborhood networks in its residents.
The author did years of in-depth research, but found most of his truths on the streets of Little Italy. The resulting interviews may have informed the text, but don't make many actual appearances.
Much of "Madonna" is given over to Orsi's ornate reasoning, and even speculation, about the meanings of the religious icon, and how they can be discerned in the behaviors of mid-century Italian-Americans in urban New York.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Somebody had to do it and his thoughts mostly ring true. Where they don't, the opportunity for debate and discussion naturally arise, and that is a second service the author rendered.
Don't give this book to your Aunt Rosina in Coney Island unless she's got a college degree and a sociological bent. "Madonna" is a scholarly text that can be dense as a zeppole with academic jargon or leavened as a sfogliatelle with deeply meditative conclusions.
But it is a delightful trove of considerations on the Italian-American and immigrant experience; a beautiful piece of history that might have otherwise been lost to those who care them.
highly recommended, a wonderful book. 
2008-10-16 - A fantastic book by Orsi! If you like Italian, Catholic, religious or NYC history, then try this out. Not a typical history book. Orsi adds a great mix of sociology, anthropology, psychology, anecdotes and solid research to create a fascinating read.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE STREETS 
2003-11-15 - Robert Orsi's Madonna of 115th Street is a brilliant multi-dimensional research on the meaning of "popular religion" in the Italian community of Harlem in New York. However, to be just, Orsi himself is rather cautious about labeling his study by the term "popular". It is "religion in the streets," Orsi says, that is in the center of his examination: "This study began in a sense of the limitations of the meaning of popular religion and a desire to broaden and deepen our understanding of this phenomenon" (Orsi, 1985:xiv). Robert Orsi raises pertinent and engaging questions regarding the melding of ethnicity, religion, and community values which have implications beyond the scope of the present work.
The study of Italian American religion begins with the people themselves as a story of suffering, conflict, and hope intimately related to Mary. The men and women of Italian Harlem, the Sicilian refugees brought to the United States along with their modest material goods their incredibly rich religiosity and devotion to the Marian cult. The latter, unlike in the case of Polish Catholics (Orsi, 1985:xvi), was hardly controlled by the Church structures. This unique feature of the Southern Italian Catholicism defined people's religion as the totality of their ultimate values, their most deeply held ethical convictions, their efforts to order their reality, their cosmology: "This also could be called their "ground of being", but only if this is understood in a very concrete, social-historical way, not as reality beyond their lives, but as the reason that, consciously and unconsciously, structured and was expressed in their actions and reflections" (Orsi, 1985:xvii). Orsi's analysis resembles Durkheim's research on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life who believes that religion is "a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity". The reality of religious forces is to be found in the real experience of social life, according to Durkheim (Durkheim, 1995:36). Interestingly enough, in the same way as Durkheim finds the birth of that idea in rites, as moments of collective effervescence, Orsi finds the annual festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel in the 115th Street in the heart of the socio-religious dynamics of the Italian Harlem.
Symbol, ritual, and myth - the entire experience of Mount Carmel emerged from and referred back to the people's lives; the men and women of Italian Harlem shared and found themselves in the destiny of symbolic meanings when they attended the festa of the Madonna of 115th Street. In turn, their experience of the Madonna shaped their American destiny.
Best Depiction of Italian-American Life I Have Ever Read!!
2002-08-01 - Great book! Covers not only the Catholicism of Italian Americans, but also a great deal about their home and family lives. Neither PC nor arrogant, this book depicts the Italian American world better than anything I have read! I kept nodding in agreement and underlining passages while reading. Forget the movie stereotypes and sentimental recollections; this is the real thing. It helped me understand my own culture a great deal.
The only letdown was the part about a "Theology of the Streets." That section struck me as a tad unrealistic.
How religion plays out in the everyday lives and experiences
2002-05-06 - In The Madonna Of 115th Street, Robert A. Orsi (Charles Warren Professor of American Religious History, Harvard University) offers a seminal and ground breaking study of faith and community in New York City's Italian Harlem. The focus of this treatise is the annual Catholic festival called "Madonna of 115th Street" and how it has both influenced and reflects the lives of the men and women of the neighborhood. The Madonna Of 115th Street reveals a compelling perspective on how religion plays out in the everyday lives and experiences of American Catholics and the formation of a distinctive immigrant community. This Yale "Nota Bene" paperback edition is highly recommended reading and enhanced with a new introduction by Orsi outlining the changes that Italian Harlem has undergone in recent years and the significant shifts that have occurred in the field of American religious history.
