Description
Book SynopsisHow can intense religious beliefs coexist with pluralism in America? Examining the role of the religious imagination in contemporary religious practice and in some of the best-known works of American literature, this title shows how belief for its own sake has become an answer to pluralism in a secular age.
Trade ReviewShortlisted for the 2011 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Textual Study of Religion "Postmodern Belief offers keen insights for the serious reader regarding current writers and their conception of the sacred."--Cliff Prewencki, Salem Press Magill Book Reviews "Hungerford's text is for scholars of contemporary literature and contemporary religion; for readers concerned about the relevance of literary texts and their continued ability to inform our lives; and for readers pursuing the meaning of religious belief in a postmodern world. Her work is richly researched and interdisciplinary, moving deftly between religious history and literary theory. Her reframing of belief is both creative and capacious, reaffirming the ability of literature to convey meaning in an allegedly postliterary age."--Kristina K. Groover, Modern Philology
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION: Belief in Meaninglessness xiii CHAPTER ONE: Believing in Literature Eisenhower, Salinger, St. Jacques Derrida 1 CHAPTER TWO: Supernatural Formalism in the Sixties Ginsberg, Chant, Glossolalia 28 CHAPTER THREE: The Latin Mass of Language Vatican II, Catholic Media, Don DeLillo 52 CHAPTER FOUR: The Bible and Illiterature Bible Criticism, McCarthy and Morrison, Illiterate Readers 76 CHAPTER FIVE: The Literary Practice of Belief Lived Religion, Marilynne Robinson, Left Behind 107 CONCLUSION: The End of The Road, Devil on the Rise 132 Notes 141 Bibliography 175 Index 187
