Preface: Spirit Meeting Stone

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226781785.002.0007

Front Matter

Preface: Spirit Meeting Stone

Get access

https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226781785.002.0007

Pages

ix–xii

Published:

September 2021

Extract

Raised in New York City, I have always experienced the shape of the metropolis as home: a place that knows little darkness, and where the lights in all of their phantasmic power obscure the stars. Beyond bright lights and twenty-four-hour bodegas, I have become intimately familiar with the metropolis as a place of myriad cultures, languages, and longings—its human density and speed uniting us strangers and, just as quickly, pulling us apart.

Snippets of the world live and lived together on our small and glowing island, bobbing between two murky rivers. For this reason, my childhood in Morningside Heights, a thin strip of upper Manhattan, was just as—if differently—idyllic as those of my friends who grew up in small towns and rural villages. In the 1980s and 1990s, everyone in my neighborhood, from the fishermen on 125th Street risking their lives to eat their catch to the dry cleaner who handed off gossip along with freshly pressed clothes, knew one another’s names. The spirit of our neighborhood was embracing, reflected in its body of wide avenues hugged by two verdant parks, its churches rising from the ground to split the sky. I rode the subway from the 110th and Cathedral Parkway station and frequented its namesake, Cathedral St. John the Divine, close to my home, where saints looked on with wary eyes; there candles burned and choirs sang, pigeons perched on the gaping mouths of gargoyles at rest, closing their wings. Peacocks in the adjacent gardens splayed their majestic tails beside a peace fountain, presided over by Archangel Michael, his own wings open towards the sky. I often watched these peacocks from across the street, sat at the Hungarian Pastry Shop, a neighborhood institution owned by a Greek family, managed by Ethiopian New Yorkers, and filled with Columbia University students fanning their faces with literature as they looked for love. Something about that space on my childhood street—its heavy, refillable coffee mugs, its refusal to install internet or outlets, its vista of cathedral and rainbow bird tails beside whizzing cars—made me know in childhood, as I still know today, that the city could speak to me from deep in its soul.

You do not currently have access to this chapter.

Sign in with email/username & password
Get email alerts
Save searches
Purchase content
Activate your purchase/trial code
Add your ORCID iD

Get help with access

Institutional access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institutionâ€™s website and Oxford Academic.

Click Sign in through your institution.
Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institutionâ€™s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see â€˜Sign in through society siteâ€™ in the sign in pane within a journal:

Click Sign in through society site.
When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

Personal account

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

Institutional account management

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Metrics

Total Views 1

1 Pageviews

0 PDF Downloads

Since 8/1/2024

Month:	Total Views:
August 2024	1

Contents

Preface: Spirit Meeting Stone

Extract

Email alerts

Contents

Preface: Spirit Meeting Stone

Extract

Sign in

Personal account

Institutional access

Institutional account management

Get help with access

Institutional access

IP based access

Sign in through your institution

Sign in with a library card

Society Members

Sign in through society site

Sign in using a personal account

Personal account

Viewing your signed in accounts

Signed in but can't access content

Institutional account management

Purchase

Email alerts

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only