The Religious Critic in American Culture (Emotions) - Softcover

Dean, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791421147 ISBN 13: 9780791421147

Verlag: State University of New York Press, 1994

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Dean William

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Críticas

"William Dean has written a powerful book for our time--the best case for serious public intellectuals we have!" -- Cornel West, Harvard University

"This book engages the reader in an exploration of a related set of ideas, ideas that are timely, complex, challenging, and open-ended. Every page, including many of the footnotes, is an invitation to look further and to reconsider received opinion. Few readers will have read as widely or as carefully." -- Robert L. Payton, Indiana University

"A thoughtful, persuasive case for the overdue reunion of religion with intellect in the public square. William Dean restores perspective to the most important debate of our time." -- Hodding Carter

Reseña del editor

This book provides a new rationale for "religious criticism" in American society. First, Dean shows why today's academic intellectuals are relatively indifferent to questions of meaning in America, pointing to the loss of American "exceptionalism," the professionalization of the academy, and the rise of post-structural criticism. He then shows how intellectuals may reclaim a prophetic role by offering a new theory of the nature of religious thought. Tracing this theory to a twentieth-century emphasis on conventions, Dean provides a way to understand how imaginative social constructions can become active historical conventions, with real historical force. He suggests that the sacred itself begins as an imaginative construct and becomes a convention, thus working as an active, "living" force in history. Finally, Dean argues that religious critics must now reclaim a responsibility for shaping their society's sacred conventions.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: State University of New York Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0791421147
• ISBN 13: 9780791421147
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 286