| The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination Contributor(s): Bender, Courtney (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226042804 ISBN-13: 9780226042800 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $34.65 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Sociology Of Religion - Religion | Spirituality - History | United States - General |
| Dewey: 204.209 |
| LCCN: 2009033208 |
| Physical Information: 0.56" H x 6.33" W x 8.92" (0.81 lbs) 272 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: American spirituality--with its focus on individual meaning, experience, and exploration--is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. But, as The New Metaphysicals makes clear, contemporary American spirituality has historic roots in the nineteenth century and a great deal in common with traditional religious movements. To explore this world, Courtney Bender combines research into the history of the movement with fieldwork in Cambridge, Massachusetts--a key site of alternative religious inquiry from Emerson and William James to today. Through her ethnographic analysis, Bender discovers that a focus on the new, on progress, and on the way spiritual beliefs intersect with science obscures the historical roots of spirituality from its practitioners and those who study it alike--and shape an enduring set of modern religious possibilities in the process. |
