Christian Homes

Het is een heel bijzonder volume geworden dat aandacht besteedt aan de cultus van de huiselijkheid die in de 19de eeuw ontstaat, ook in katholieke middens. Het is de periode waarin het moederideaal van 'de engel in huis' ontstaat. Het ideaal van het afgesloten huis blijkt echter een latere projectie te zijn. In die oude periode zijn er steevast verbindingslijnen tussen de private sfeer en de publieke sfeer. Tal van detailstudies in dit boek tonen die dwarsverbindingen helder aan. Van Osselaer leidt het thema prachtig in. [...] Het is een academische studie vol verrassende inzichten in de boeiende periode van het rijke Roomse leven.
(JG), www.christusrex.be

Nine articles and an introduction make up the collection, edited by Tine Van Osselaer and Patrick Pasture, which is framed around the themes of gender (both women and men), family and domesticity. The collection is a welcome addition to a growing body of scholarly literature seeking to take personal faith more seriously in modern history. It moves beyond the secularisation thesis which has dominated our understanding of Europe's Christian landscape and which has hindered our ability to appreciate the ways in which religious belief functioned in everyday life.
Lucinda Matthews-Jones, English Historical Review (2016) 131 (548): 229-230. doi: 10.1093/ehr/cev341

The essays of 'Christian Homes' represent a necessarily partial approach to a large question, and, as one expects, they are uneven, not least in their facility with English. Nonetheless, they represent a useful reminder that the historians' “angel of the home” was often tacitly Protestant. They suggest that Catholicism is a useful avenue of inquiry into a conceptual tool—the cult of domesticity—that, in spite of extensive critique, remains important to our notion of European modernity.
CAROL E. HARRISON, The Catholic Historical Review (2016, vol. 102, no. 4).

Ciಠdetto, il giudizio su Christian Homes resta senza dubbio positivo per almeno due ragioni: da una parte capacità di mostrare le forzature e te contraddizioni dei processi di costruzione del femminile e del maschile, mettendo in evidenza le similitudini e le differenze fra i due modelli; e dall'altra l'approccio innovativo nello studio della politicizzazione delle devazioni, attento all'elaborazione da parte delle gerarchie ecclesiastiche ma anche alla ricezione da parte dei fedeli
Azzurra Tafuro

In offering well-researched, nuanced and thoughtful insight into the intimate but ever changing connections between religion, family, domesticity in various sites of European Christianity, this collection deepens understanding of the tenacity and varieties of religion centered in the home. And as with any solid contribution it opens up new areas for reflection and comparison.
Religion and Gender. 6(2), pp.336–338. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/rg.10193