Friday, July 03, 2009

Pg. 99: Jay Wexler's "Holy Hullabaloos"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars by Jay Wexler.

About the book, from the publisher:
Prayer in schools? Animal sacrifices in public? Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn? Jay Wexler has seen it all...

After ten years spent riddling over the intricacies of church/state law from the ivory tower, law professor Jay Wexler decided it was high time to hit the road to learn what really happened in some of the most controversial Supreme Court cases involving this hot-button issue. In Holy Hullabaloos, he takes us along for the ride, crossing the country to meet the people and visit the places responsible for landmark decisions in recent judicial history, from a high school football field where fans once recited prayers before kickoff to a Santeria church notorious for animal sacrifice, from a publicly funded Muslim school to a creationist museum. Wexler's no-holds-barred approach to investigating famous church/state brouhahas is as funny as it is informative.
Read more about Holy Hullabaloos at the publisher's website, learn more about the author at Jay Wexler's faculty webpage.

Wexler teaches at the Boston University School of Law. He studied religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and law at Stanford, and worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He has published numerous academic articles, and reviews, as well as nearly three dozen short stories and humor pieces in outlets such as Spy and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

The Page 99 Test: Holy Hullabaloos.

--Marshal Zeringue