This presentation analyzes a recombinant architecture that combines features of malls and churches. Based on photographic documentation of old shopping centers and new constructions, we examine how shoppers/seekers enter a new exurban space and a new form of commercial/religious experience. Almost a century after Max Weber conducted field research in Oklahoma, we revisit Oklahoma City, a site of previous innovations in televangelism as well as in the material culture of consumption.

David Stark is Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Columbia University where he directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. David Stark is one of the leading economic sociologist who provided seminal contributions to network and innovation research and theories of post-socialism. His latest book The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life was recently released in paperback from Princeton University Press.

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