The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics

The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics PDF

Author: R. Griffin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-11-05

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0230241638

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The emerging shape of the post Cold War world provides evidence that rather than diminishing, the profound intersection of political ideology and religious forms of belief is an ever more potent force in world affairs. This volume offers both theoretic underpinnings, and a comparative analysis that elucidates this potent and dangerous phenomenon.

The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics

The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics PDF

Author: Robert Mallett

Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Published: 2008-11-05

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13:

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September 11th 2001 brought the entire question of religion's place in modern political ideology into sharp focus. Yet in effect this dysfunctional symbiosis had already been a feature of the international landscape for many decades. Scholars such as Eric Voeglin and Raymond Aron, to name but a few, delineated and assessed the way in which regime types such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Mussolini's fascist Italy and Hitler's Nazi Germany assumed quasi religious forms, substituting an omnipotent divine being with a corporeal and illuminated leader, as early as the 1920s and 1930s. But it is only recently that academic attention has returned with a vengeance to examine the manner in which revolutionary movements frequently adopt a religious form, or even hijack existing mainstream faiths in order to pursue a frequently brutal and violent political agenda based on sweeping social and individual transformation along the lines of official dogma and doctrine. This volume, dedicated to the great scholar of fascism and the Iberian world, Professor Stanley G. Payne, aims to emulate his spirit of enquiry by offering a new series of theoretical and case study analyses of the 'sacred' dimension of politics in the modern era.

The Politics of the Sacred in America

The Politics of the Sacred in America PDF

Author: Anthony Squiers

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-12-21

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 3319688707

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This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of ‘the Founding Fathers’ and the signs of America’s sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred. The book’s overarching thesis is that America’s civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country’s politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America’s unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States.

In Search of the Sacred Book

In Search of the Sacred Book PDF

Author: Aníbal González

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0822983028

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In Search of the Sacred Book studies the artistic incorporation of religious concepts such as prophecy, eternity, and the afterlife in the contemporary Latin American novel. It departs from sociopolitical readings by noting the continued relevance of religion in Latin American life and culture, despite modernity's powerful secularizing influence. Analyzing Jorge Luis Borges's secularized "narrative theology" in his essays and short stories, the book follows the development of the Latin American novel from the early twentieth century until today by examining the attempts of major novelists, from María Luisa Bombal, Alejo Carpentier, and Juan Rulfo, to Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and José Lezama Lima, to "sacralize" the novel by incorporating traits present in the sacred texts of many religions. It concludes with a view of the "desacralization" of the novel by more recent authors, from Elena Poniatowska and Fernando Vallejo to Roberto Bolaño.

Devotions and Desires

Devotions and Desires PDF

Author: Gillian A. Frank

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1469636271

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At a moment when "freedom of religion" rhetoric fuels public debate, it is easy to assume that sex and religion have faced each other in pitched battle throughout modern U.S. history. Yet, by tracking the nation's changing religious and sexual landscapes over the twentieth century, this book challenges that zero-sum account of sexuality locked in a struggle with religion. It shows that religion played a central role in the history of sexuality in the United States, shaping sexual politics, communities, and identities. At the same time, sexuality has left lipstick traces on American religious history. From polyamory to pornography, from birth control to the AIDS epidemic, this book follows religious faiths and practices across a range of sacred spaces: rabbinical seminaries, African American missions, Catholic schools, pagan communes, the YWCA, and much more. What emerges is the shared story of religion and sexuality and how both became wedded to American culture and politics. The volume, framed by a provocative introduction by Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, and Heather R. White and a compelling afterword by John D'Emilio, features essays by Rebecca T. Alpert and Jacob J. Staub, Rebecca L. Davis, Lynne Gerber, Andrea R. Jain, Kathi Kern, Rachel Kranson, James P. McCartin, Samira K. Mehta, Daniel Rivers, Whitney Strub, Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, Judith Weisenfeld, and Neil J. Young.

Rethinking the Political

Rethinking the Political PDF

Author: Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2011-12-19

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0773586679

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Rethinking the Political demonstrates that the Collège de Sociologie's quest to create a new place for the sacred in modern collective life ostensibly entailed avoiding the theorization of both aesthetics and politics. While the Collège condemned manipulation by totalitarian regimes, its understanding of community also led to a rejection of democratic and communist forms of political organization, leaving the group open to accusations of flirting with fascism. Acknowledging these political ambiguities, the author goes beyond a narrow ideological reading to reveal the Collège's important contribution to our thinking about the relationships between community formation, politics, aesthetics, and the sacred in the modern world. She expands her historical account of the members' thought, including their relationship to Surrealism, beyond the group's dissolution, and shows how the work of Claude Lefort extends, but also resolves, many of the Collège's key theoretical insights. A fascinating study of some of the twentieth-century's most daring thinkers, Rethinking the Political offers crucial insights into the contradictions at play in modern notions of community that still resonate today.

Sacred and Secular

Sacred and Secular PDF

Author: Pippa Norris

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-09-20

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781139456388

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Seminal thinkers of the nineteenth century - Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud - all predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. The belief that religion was dying became the conventional wisdom in the social sciences during most of the twentieth century. During the last decade, however, the secularization thesis has experienced the most sustained challenge in its long history. The traditional secularization thesis needs updating. Religion has not disappeared and is unlikely to do so. Nevertheless, the concept of secularization captures an important part of what is going on. This book develops a theory of secularization and existential security. Sacred and Secular is essential reading for anyone interested in comparative religion, sociology, public opinion, political behavior, political development, social psychology, international relations, and cultural change.

Sacred Causes

Sacred Causes PDF

Author: Michael Burleigh

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0061753440

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Beginning with the chaotic post-World War I landscape, in which religious belief was one way of reordering a world knocked off its axis, Sacred Causes is a penetrating critique of how religion has often been camouflaged by politics. All the bloody regimes and movements of the twentieth century are masterfully captured here, from Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain through to the modern scourge of terrorism. Eloquently and persuasively combining an authoritative survey of history with a timely reminder of the dangers of radical secularism, Burleigh asks why no one foresaw the religious implications of massive Third World immigration, and he deftly investigates what are now driving calls for a civic religion to counter the terrorist threats that have so shocked the West.

Sacred Interests

Sacred Interests PDF

Author: Karine V. Walther

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2015-09-21

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 1469625407

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Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, U.S. diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events. In Sacred Interests, Karine V. Walther excavates the deep history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims shaped U.S. foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I. Beginning with the Greek War of Independence in 1821, Walther illuminates reactions to and involvement in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the efforts to protect Jews from Muslim authorities in Morocco, American colonial policies in the Philippines, and American attempts to aid Christians during the Armenian Genocide. Walther examines the American role in the peace negotiations after World War I, support for the Balfour Declaration, and the establishment of the mandate system in the Middle East. The result is a vital exploration of the crucial role the United States played in the Islamic world during the long nineteenth century--an interaction that shaped a historical legacy that remains with us today.

The Protestant Presence in Twentieth-Century America

The Protestant Presence in Twentieth-Century America PDF

Author: Phillip E. Hammond

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780791411216

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Protestantism has undergone a shift in its relationship with American culture and politics. This book analyzes and evaluates that shift. The author shows how Protestantism began in America as a vibrant civil religion and how it developed so that, by the 1970s, its relationship with American culture and politics had changed radically. He shows how Evangelical Protestantism came into being and remains resilient. Hammond also discusses religious culture as it dealt with the courts--the separation of church and state, and the changing meaning of this doctrine.