Religion and Cultural Studies

Published by Princeton University Press 2001

Religion and Cultural Studies

Edited by: Susan L. Mizruchi

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691224046

Overview
Contents

About this book

Americans have never been more religious than they are now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century. By all reports, attendance rates at traditional places of worship are high and rising; the influx of new immigrant religions has revitalized standard faiths and drawn in those who had strayed from them. Popular television shows like "The Simpsons" feature characters who go to church every Sunday and speak to God; special events, like the 1998 outdoor mass in Worcester, Massachusetts, for a comatose girl believed to have miraculous powers, attract thousands of people.

This collection is both part of this ferment and an intellectual reflection upon it. Religion and Cultural Studies features essays by major scholars from the fields of anthropology, history, literary criticism, and religion in order to enrich critical discourse about religion and culture. Despite the variety of disciplines represented by this group of scholars and the variety of cultures explored in their essays--from fifteenth-century Flemish asceticism and nineteenth-century African-American spiritualism to Russian blood-libel trials and Alien Abduction Reports in the twentieth century--their common ground is the question of religion's place in current American academic analysis, and more broadly in American life today. The volume's range of vocabulary and subject matter is aimed at vitalizing scholarly interest in the field of religion and cultural studies and deepening intellectual inquiry in the contemporary academy.

The contributors are Eytan Bercovitch, Karen McCarthy Brown, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Richard Wightman Fox, Jenny Franchot, Giles Gunn, Geoffrey Galt Harpham, Bruce B. Lawrence, Jack Miles, Susan L. Mizruchi, and Jonathan Z. Smith.

Author / Editor information

Susan L. Mizruchi is Professor of English and American Studies at Boston University. She is the author of The Power of Historical Knowledge: Narrating the Past in Hawthorne, James, and Dreiser and The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory (both Princeton). She is a Guggenheim fellow for 2001-2001.

Reviews

"A compelling book that will contribute significantly to the revitalization of academic religious studies. What makes this collection particularly welcome and distinctive is not only its tone of sympathetic engagement but also the imaginative reach and mobility of its essays. From Jonathan Z. Smith's discussion of alien encounters to Jack Miles's sensitive account of John Cage's 'silent' compositions, this book deploys the techniques of cultural studies to clarify rather than obfuscate and to deepen rather than trivialize."—Andrew Delbanco, Columbia University

"An eclectic and curiously framed collection that brings together essays of genuine vibrancy."---Leigh E. Schmidt, The Journal of American History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Contributors Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
1. Close Encounters of Diverse Kinds Jonathan Z. Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Telling a Life through Haitian Vodou: An Essay Concerning Race, Gender, Memory, and Historical Consciousness Karen Mccarthy Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
3. Unseemly Commemoration: Religion, Fragments, and the Icon Jenny Franchot Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
4. The Place of Ritual in Our Time Susan L. Mizruchi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
5. Human Solidarity and the Problem of Otherness Giles Gunn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
6. Ascetics, Aesthetics, and the Management of Desire Geoffrey Galt Harpham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
7. New Baptized: The Culture of Love in America, 1830s to 1950s Richard Wightman Fox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
8. “The Mystery of Life in All Its Forms”: Religious Dimensions of Culture in Early American Anthropology Gillian Feeley-Harnik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
9. Global Requiem: The Apocalyptic Moment in Religion, Science, and Art Jack Miles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
10. The Altar of Sin: Social Multiplicity and Christian Conversion among a New Guinea People Eytan Bercovitch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
11. God On Line: Locating the Pagan/Asian Soul of America in Cyberspace Bruce B. Lawrence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	236
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Index of Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263