From The Holy Land To Graceland: Sacred People, Places and Things In Our Lives

An internationally known Byzantinist and scholar of medieval art, Dr. Vikan has published and lectured extensively on topics as varied as early Christian pilgrimage, medicine and magic, icons, the Shroud of Turin, neuroscience and aesthetics, and Elvis Presley. A native of Minnesota, he received his B.A. He was named Chevalier de l Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and Communication in 2000. Gary Vikan served as director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore

Blum, co-author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of RaceFrom The Holy Land to Graceland is an illuminating tale for the modern reader. What has Graceland to do with Jerusalem? Thanks to Gary Vikan, we now know the answer is a lot. --Edward J. Gary Vikan deftly and expertly unpacks the sources and implications of celebrity culture through the lens of none other than Elvis Presley, perhaps the most enduring embodiment of American secular worship. --Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director, Dallas Museum of Art

As former Walters Art Museum director and medievalist Gary Vikan shows us in his fascinating new book, Graceland, the second-most visited historic house in the U.S., is a locus sanctus a holy placeand Elvis is its resident saint, while the hordes of fans that crowd Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis are modern-day pilgrims, connected in spirit and practice to their early Christian counterparts, sharing a fascination for icons and iconography, relics, souvenirs, votives, and even a belief in miracles. Vikan reveals the emergence of contemporary holy placesGround Zero in Lower Manhattan, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the Grassy Knoll in Dallas, Place de l'Alma in Parisand shows us that the saints of our day are our “martyred” secular charismatics, from Elvis to John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, and others.. Graceland is m