TORONTO PANEL & LAUNCH: The Public Work of Christmas

Massey College at the University of Toronto, 4 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON
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Massey College in the University of Toronto will host a panel discussion and book launch for The Public Work of Christmas: Difference and Belonging in Multicultural Societies.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Public Work of Christmas provides a comparative historical and ethnographic perspective on the politics of Christmas in multicultural contexts ranging from a Jewish museum in Berlin to a shopping boulevard in Singapore. A seasonal celebration that is at once inclusive and assimilatory, Christmas offers a clarifying lens for considering the historical and ongoing intersections of multiculturalism, Christianity, and the nationalizing and racializing of religion. The essays gathered here examine how cathedrals, banquets, and carols serve as infrastructures of memory that hold up Christmas as a civic, yet unavoidably Christian holiday. At the same time, the authors show how the public work of Christmas depends on cultural forms that mark, mask, and resist the ongoing power of Christianity in the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike.