New publication: Christmas in town

Jörg Rüpke
Christmas in town
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand, 2025
ISBN: 9783695161126
124 pages (paperback)
7,99 EUR
e-book: 0,99 EUR

Christmas is a global holiday today. Attendance figures and economic significance are enormous. The five essays invite readers to broaden the discussion as to whether the festival is still religious or already secularised. They look at how dramatically Christmas has changed time and again. They look at the ways in which people live Christmas today and how they use Christmas rituals as spaces in which they put coexistence and the formation of values to the test. The volume begins with the question of how and where Christmas is celebrated in the first place and goes on to explore the significance of Christmas markets and carol singing. The urban present leads to surprising observations on old texts and their understanding and misunderstanding in the following period. The overview ends in the fifth essay with the observation that the commercialisation of the festival has not disrupted the ritual, but rather shaped it.

The author
Jörg Rüpke lives and researches in Erfurt. He has been a Fellow of Religious Studies since 2008 and Co-Director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg for Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt since 2013. His work focuses on the theory of religion and ritual, and historically on ancient and comparative religious history. He is the author of numerous books and essays and has been translated into several languages.