Beheading the Saint
Nationalism, Religion, and Secularism in Quebec
Through much of its existence, Quebec's neighbors called it the "priest-ridden province". Today, however, Quebec society is staunchly secular, with a modern welfare state built on lay provision of social services – a transformation rooted in the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s. In "Beheading the Saint", Genevieve Zubrzycki studies that transformation through a close investigation of the annual Feast of St. John the Baptist of June 24. The celebrations of that national holiday, she shows, provided a venue for a public contesting of the dominant ethno-Catholic conception of French Canadian identity and, via the violent rejection of Catholic symbols, the articulation of a new, secular Quebecois identity. From there, Zubrzycki extends her analysis to the present, looking at the role of Quebecois identity in recent debates over immigration, the place of religious symbols in the public sphere, and the politics of cultural heritage – issues that also offer insight on similar debates elsewhere in the world.
About the Author
Genevieve Zubrzycki is associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. She is the author of "The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland", also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews
"Zubrzycki's analysis is a tour de force and a real contribution to visual sociology and the history of material culture. She brilliantly unpacks the cultural and iconographic logics of the various visual symbols and argues convincingly that these iconographic struggles were not merely products of the political and cultural change taking place in Quebec society, but themselves important agents producing the change. 'Beheading the Saint' is beautifully written, splendidly illustrated, based on extensive research, much of it archival, and extremely original. Its subject is one of the most interesting, but insufficiently well-known, social and political transformations of the past half-century. This is a superb book" – William H. Sewell, Jr., University of Chicago
"Elaborating the 'national sensorium' through which French Canadians became Quebecois in the late twentieth century, Zubrzycki skillfully deploys the tools of sociological, historical, and visual analysis to reveal a new national identity in the making. Zubrzycki's deep and detailed readings of holidays, parades, symbols, and political debates brilliantly illuminate the contingent dynamic interrelations between nationalism, religion, and secularism. An important book for our own symbolically charged times" – Robin Wagner-Pacifici, the New School
"In this richly detailed historical investigation of religion and politics in Quebec, Zubrzycki provides an impressive new approach to the study of visual culture, identity transformation, and symbolic politics. 'Beheading the Saint' is a major theoretical and methodological contribution to the study of culture, religion, and nationalism" – Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University
"In 'Beheading the Saint', Zubrzycki offers a fascinating analysis of how French Canadians became Quebecois at the speed of light. She also provides a much-needed non-reductivist analysis of the unfolding of chains of signification that transform collective identity. This book will be of great interest to an interdisciplinary audience aiming to understand the changing relationship between secularism and nationalism at the level of narratives and experiences" – Michele Lamont, Harvard University
