| Type of Document |
Dissertation |
| Author |
Slagle, Amy
|
| Author's Email Address |
ams41@pitt.edu |
| URN |
etd-04192008-112632 |
| Title |
"Nostalgia Without Memory": A Case Study of American Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Degree |
Doctor of Philosophy |
| Program |
Religion (Cooperative Program in the study of) |
| School |
School of Arts and Sciences |
| Advisory Committee |
| Advisor Name |
Title |
| Alexander Orbach |
Committee Chair |
| Adam Shear |
Committee Member |
| Kathleen DeWalt |
Committee Member |
| Milica Bakic-Hayden |
Committee Member |
| Nancy Condee |
Committee Member |
| Paula Kane |
Committee Member |
|
| Keywords |
- Pittsburgh
- Eastern Orthodoxy
- conversion
|
| Date of Defense |
2008-04-11 |
| Availability |
unrestricted |
Abstract
This dissertation explores the ascribed social meanings and processes of conversion among contemporary American converts to Eastern Orthodoxy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Employing the ethnographic field methods of participant observation and interviewing at two primary fieldsites, a Greek Orthodox and Orthodox Church in America parish, I examine how converts, as choice-makers using consumer-like strategies and print/electronic media to study and compare religious options, reflect and effect change in communities commonly regarded in the United States as preserving the languages and customs of various immigrant groups from Eastern, Southeastern Europe, and the Middle East. Much of the existing scholarly literature on Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States characterizes it as an ancient, unchanging form of Christianity that is highly resistant to the conditions of what religion scholars refer to as the “spiritual marketplace” of expansive religious diversity and individual choice-making in regard to religious affiliation. Yet, through the lens of conversion, I chart how the language and methods of the “marketplace” are taken-for-granted elements of church life, engrained in the words and actions of Orthodox clerics and lifelong church members in addition to converts themselves. Drawing upon the work of sociologist Ann Swidler, I argue that the marketplace remains one of the most powerful “toolkits” or “cultural repertoires,” although by no means the only one, by which local Orthodox Christians in Pittsburgh have come to understand their religious lives and serves as a new means of gauging the influence and engagement of Orthodox Christianity with its surrounding American culture.
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| Files |
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Approximate Download Time
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ISDN (64 Kb) |
ISDN (128 Kb) |
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Slagle-Dissertation-ETD.pdf |
2.30 Mb |
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