Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture PDF Author: John Gatta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190646551
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
What might it mean, existentially and spiritually, for humans to form an intimate relation with particular sites or dwelling places on earth? In ancient Rome, the notion of a locale's genius loci signaled recognition of its enchanted, enspirited identity. But in a digitalized America of unprecedented mobility can place still matter as seed ground for the soul? Such questions have been broached by ecocritics concerned with how place-inflected experience figures in literature, and by theologians concerned with ecotheology and ecospirituality. This book offers a uniquely integrative perspective, informed by a theological phenomenology of place that takes fuller account of the spiritualities associated with built environments than ecocriticism typically does. Spirits of Place blends theological and cultural analysis with personal reflection, while focusing on the multi-layered witness presented by American literature. John Gatta's interpretive readings range across texts by an array of canonical as well as lesser-known writers. Along the way, it addresses such themes as the religious implications of localism vs. globalism; the diverse spiritualities associated with long-term residency, resettlement, and pilgrimage; why some sites seem more hallowed than others; and how the creative spirit of Imagination figures in place-identified perceptions of the numinous. Whether in Christian or other religious terms, no discrete place matters absolutely. Yet this study demonstrates how and why hallowed geography and the sacramentality of place have mattered throughout our cultural history.

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture PDF Author: John Gatta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190646551
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
What might it mean, existentially and spiritually, for humans to form an intimate relation with particular sites or dwelling places on earth? In ancient Rome, the notion of a locale's genius loci signaled recognition of its enchanted, enspirited identity. But in a digitalized America of unprecedented mobility can place still matter as seed ground for the soul? Such questions have been broached by ecocritics concerned with how place-inflected experience figures in literature, and by theologians concerned with ecotheology and ecospirituality. This book offers a uniquely integrative perspective, informed by a theological phenomenology of place that takes fuller account of the spiritualities associated with built environments than ecocriticism typically does. Spirits of Place blends theological and cultural analysis with personal reflection, while focusing on the multi-layered witness presented by American literature. John Gatta's interpretive readings range across texts by an array of canonical as well as lesser-known writers. Along the way, it addresses such themes as the religious implications of localism vs. globalism; the diverse spiritualities associated with long-term residency, resettlement, and pilgrimage; why some sites seem more hallowed than others; and how the creative spirit of Imagination figures in place-identified perceptions of the numinous. Whether in Christian or other religious terms, no discrete place matters absolutely. Yet this study demonstrates how and why hallowed geography and the sacramentality of place have mattered throughout our cultural history.

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture PDF Author: John Gatta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190646543
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
"What might it mean, existentially and spiritually, to form an intimate relation with discrete places on earth? This book offers a uniquely integrative perspective on the matter. Centered on analyzing US literatures, it reflects a theological phenomenology cognizant of the spiritualities grounded in First Nature as well as settled spaces" --

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture

Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture PDF Author: John Gatta
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190646578
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
What might it mean, existentially and spiritually, to form an intimate relation with discrete sites or dwelling places on earth? This book offers a uniquely integrative perspective on the matter. Blending theological and cultural analysis, it focuses on the multi-layered witness enshrined in American literary texts and demonstrates that hallowed geography and the sacramentality of place have mattered throughout our history.

Subversive Spirits

Subversive Spirits PDF Author: Robin Roberts
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496815572
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
The supernatural has become extraordinarily popular in literature, television, and film. Vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, and wizard have become staples of entertainment industries, and many of these figures have received extensive critical attention. But one figure has remained in the shadows--the female ghost. Inherently liminal, often literally invisible, the female ghost has nevertheless appeared in all genres. Subversive Spirits: The Female Ghost in British and American Popular Culture brings this figure into the light, exploring her cultural significance in a variety of media from 1926 to 2014. Robin Roberts argues that the female ghost is well worth studying for what she can tell us about feminine subjectivity in cultural contexts. Subversive Spirits examines appearances of the female ghost in heritage sites, theater, Hollywood film, literature, and television in the United States and the United Kingdom. What holds these disparate female ghosts together is their uncanny ability to disrupt, illuminate, and challenge gendered assumptions. As with other supernatural figures, the female ghost changes over time, especially responding to changes in gender roles. Roberts's analysis begins with comedic female ghosts in literature and film and moves into horror by examining the successful play The Woman in Black and the legend of the weeping woman, La Llorona. Roberts then situates the canonical works of Maxine Hong Kingston and Toni Morrison in the tradition of the female ghost to explore how the ghost is used to portray the struggle and pain of women of color. Roberts further analyzes heritage sites that use the female ghost as the friendly and inviting narrator for tourists. The book concludes with a comparison of the British and American versions of the television hit Being Human, where the female ghost expands her influence to become a mother and savior to all humanity.

Harmony of the Spirits

Harmony of the Spirits PDF Author: Patrick Michael Erben
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807835579
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Harmony of the Spirits: Translation and the Language of Community in Early Pennsylvania

Spirits of America

Spirits of America PDF Author: Nicholas O. Warner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806118734
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Warner analyzes the literary treatment of alcoholism, drunkenness, "normal" drinking, drug addiction, and intoxicant choice, showing how these issues tie in with larger, crucial questions in American culture such as personal and political freedom, gender roles, individualism versus conformity, and the American Dream. In demonstrating both the literal and symbolic significance of intoxication in antebellum literature, the author reveals the surprising extent to which intoxication became associated with literature itself and with supposedly literary values, as opposed to those of the emerging industrial-capitalist nation.

The Saving Grace of America's Green Jeremiad

The Saving Grace of America's Green Jeremiad PDF Author: John Gatta
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793624062
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
American nature writing characteristically embodies an appreciative, lyrical evocation of the natural world. But often, too, green-disposed authors have been moved to dramatize diverse, anthropogenic perils to environmental health. John Gatta freshly reveals how this dark yet graced and hopeful strain of environmental literature enlarges upon a jeremiad tradition of prophecy inherited from Puritan New England. Across successive historical periods, such expression has assumed a rich variety of American form--as creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction, or film documentary. In the spirit of ancient Hebrew prophecy, jeremiads—unlike diatribes--reach beyond effusions of doom and gloom toward the prospect of change through a conversion of heart. Accordingly, the new climate fiction and much other writing steeped in what Gatta terms this “Green Jeremiad” tradition not only warn of material threats to life’s flourishing, but may also look to stir spiritual understanding and renewal.

Spirit in the Dark

Spirit in the Dark PDF Author: Josef Sorett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
While many of the most significant black intellectual movements of the second half of the twentieth century have been perceived as secular, Josef Sorett demonstrates in this book that religion was actually a fertile, fluid and formidable force within these movements. Spirit in the Dark examines how African American literary visions were animated and organized by religion and spirituality, from the New Negro Renaissance of the 1920s to the Black Arts movement of the 1960s.

What Happens When We Practice Religion?

What Happens When We Practice Religion? PDF Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691198586
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
He favors the use of a broad range of analytic tools drawn from multiple disciplines and approaches to the study of religion.) The five chapters of this book describe the central concepts and arguments now advancing the study of religious practice. Chapter 1, entitled "Theories", discusses the theoretical contributions associated with the aforementioned shift in religious studies to the investigation of religious practice. Chapter 2, "Situations", discusses how religious activities and experiences are shaped by the physical and temporal spaces in which social action occurs. Chapter 3, "Intentions", takes on an important topic that has proven difficult to study from a social science perspective. "Feelings" are the focus of Chapter 4, and the role of "Bodies" is addressed in Chapter 5. .

Spirits of Defiance

Spirits of Defiance PDF Author: Kathleen Morgan Drowne
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814209971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description