- Friday, May 3, 2019
- 3:30 PM–4:30 PM
- North Hall 078
The Department of Geology, Geography and Environmental Studies invites you to a seminar:
Friday, May 3, 3:30pm, North Hall 078, Refreshments will be provided.
Global Cities of God: Chinese American Megachurches in the Silicon Valley
Global cities have often been the source of contention in urban geographies as stylized command-and-control centers of the global economy that neglect everyday lives that are often construed as postsecular. In this talk, I want to examine three Chinese American megachurches in the Silicon Valley that style themselves as command-and-control centers of both local economies in cities in the San Jose area as well as transnational hubs for the making of new towns in China. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2012, my argument will be that the aspirations toward evangelical megachurch status in these three congregations positions them to engage in civil societies construed as economistic publics. In this way, the field of engagement is not simply in the marketplace of spiritual capital in the ‘new religious economics’ often discussed in sociologies of religion, but rather the (post)secular spheres of politics and economics.
