Prophetic Activism in an Age of Empire

Abstract

The paper explores the emergence of prophetic activism as a counter-narrative to the dominance of conservative Christianity in national politics. It is based on the premise that the use of religion in American politics remains highly contested. While portions of American Christianity support an imperial project, alternative visions of a more humane future are simultaneously gaining strength. These new forms of prophetic activism are emerging in two distinct yet overlapping social locations: the borderlands and among cosmopolitans. Given the marginality of the borderlands context, prophetic activism has become firmly grounded in liberative religious paradigms that empower people to identify the commonalities between contemporary forms of exploitation and those against which the ancient biblical prophets once raged. An embrace of these same liberative paradigms also enable cosmopolitans to enter into solidarity with the struggles of others for justice.     

Theology in Post-Democracy

Abstract

This essay confronts the problem of how theology is to respond to conditions of post-democracy in the United States. Building off the distinction between "politics" and "the political" in the work of Sheldon Wolin, this article asserts that his notion of "fugitive" democracy provides a useful tool to calibrate democratic engagement. The argument here identifies evangelicalism as the most historically relevant theological worldview for American politics. The analysis identifies three strands of evangelicalism: conservative, progressive and emergent. By tracing the theological foundations of each type of evangelicalism, this essay evaluates the capacity of each to speak to conditions of the fugitive in post-democracy     

Feature Review

Abstract

The emergence of the Tea Party has set off a new round of speculation on the “future” of the conservative movement. This essay discusses two issues, defense spending and immigration, on which the Tea Party may fuse a conservative-libertarian approach that might distinguish it from earlier conservative political movements. The essay notes that the twenty-first century has a developing school of conservative thought that can provide the intellectual groundwork for such a political combination between conservatives and libertarians. This school opposes both mainstream liberalism and mainstream conservatism and attempts to rework the conservative tradition to face contemporary challenges.     

Welsh Indians and savage Scots: History,antiquarianism, and Indian languages in 18th-century Britain

This paper compares late eighteenth-century claims for the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian and for the existence of Welsh Indians. It shows that although both claims were supported in part by appeals to similarities between Celtic and American Indian languages, the appeals in each case were very different. On the one hand, the Edinburgh literati who supported Ossian's authenticity focused on expressive structures shared by all primitive societies. On the other hand, radically Protestant antiquarians and philologists focused on lexical similarities that they argued demonstrate a genetic link between certain American Indians and the Welsh. The paper uses this fundamental difference underlying a superficial similarity, to explore in greater detail the distinction between philosophical historians among the Edinburgh literati, who were religiously moderate, politically conservative, and promoted Scotland's integration into a modern, polite, commercial and English-speaking empire, and the Welsh antiquarians, who were religious and political radicals and whose interest in the Welsh Indians reflected and reinforced their attempts to resurrect a distant golden age of Celtic Britain.

pe’nguin. (1) A bird. This bird was found with this name, as is supposed, by the first discoverers of America; and penguin signifying in Welsh a white head, and the head of this fowl being white, it has been imagined, that America was peopled from Wales …     

Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy

Abstract

This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just ‘watered down’ or ‘domesticated’ versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent ‘Italian Elvis’ of the 1950s), it is shown that Italian rock singers evolved from mere imitation to cultural forms that were more related to the Italian environment. Musically, this meant a relationship with the domestic melodic tradition, jazz and American rock and roll rather than the blues. The rebellious attitude of early singers was a function of the hostility demonstrated towards them by political and religious authorities. Once this attitude was replaced by one of co-optation, opposition was replaced by modernizing integration. A figure like Celentano managed to be simultaneously defiant and conservative, pagan and religious, conformist and non-conformist. The resulting contradictions were concealed beneath a personal magnetism partly based on an established ‘cool’ style that appealed to the new categories thrown up by social and economic changes. Celentano's fame was confined to Italy not because he merely imitated American rock but because he developed an original synthesis that was specifically adapted to Italian tastes.     

Fear and Foreign Bodies: The Bible and "Post-Racial" American Identity

Abstract

The Bible has played a prominent role in US political discourse, shaping ideas of race, ethnicity and identity. Its influence on the political landscape today is most evident within conservative politics—among evangelical Christians and the Tea Party Movement. At least in perception, its influence has been divisive. What role do biblical scholars and academic theologians have to play in contemporary social and political discourse, particularly with respect to race? This article approaches the question first by way of the concept of the political as espoused by Carl Schmitt and the category "race," both as applied to antiquity and to the modern period; second, through a reading of Genesis 20; and third, through attention to contemporary discussions of race among contextual and liberation theologians, focusing on the problem of essentialism in the constitution of identity. The article concludes by drawing together these elements to offer thoughts on a future course of American identity in the context of post-race desires and fears.     

Vicarious passions: the private life of Hollywood stars in 1950s Portuguese magazines

ABSTRACT

Life in Hollywood in the 1950s seemed completely at odds with the moral foundations of authoritarian Portugal. By looking at the coverage of the lives of Hollywood stars in Portuguese magazines, however, it is possible to imagine how a conservative society could be exposed to changing values. Readers became acquainted with the period’s most famous cases of divorce. Divorce was at first seen as unacceptable, but the continuous news on the lives of famous people produced a strange impact on the Portuguese public sphere: the end of marriage became familiar and even acceptable in some circumstances. The article disentangles this paradox, by treating magazines as a mediated social actor. The foreign origin of the news may have led readers to assume that divorce was a distant phenomenon. Simultaneously, the social circulation of magazines permeated the everyday with subversive ideas. Magazines thus constitute a decisive source for exploring how North American cultural forms work through the fabric of foreign societies. Imagining the impact of Hollywood in Portugal through the mediation of magazines allows us to identify forms of social change evolving in an apparently uneventful decade, and to grasp the contribution of feelings and attitudes in historical transformation.     

“The Delicious Sense of Foreignness”: American Transcendentalism in the Atlantic

Abstract

This essay presents one example of the ways in which place, transiency, and change have shaped the American experience. In the mid-nineteenth century a diverse group of American Transcendentalists came together on the island of Fayal in the Azores. The Transcendentalists' reaction to the Portuguese Catholic culture they encountered in the Azores indicates a broader pattern among nineteenth-century American liberals. These tourists operated within a larger transatlantic atmosphere of uncertainty characterized at times by hope but also by crisis. This culture of uncertainty, moreover, was one of the key factors in shaping how American liberals struggled with their conceptions of religion and nation.     

A Time to Speak

Abstract

This article explores the significance of resonance as a mode of social causality in response to William Connolly's book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. While applauding Connolly's identification of "affinities of spirituality" as effective in forming American politics, it suggests that the character structure of ressentiment that is encountered in right-wing Christianity and politics may be the result of instability. Examining the economic basis for growth and instability in the creation of dollars in the form of debt lacking an underlying guarantee, it suggests that this instability is felt throughout American society in everyday experiences of credit and debt.     

Editorial

Abstract

This article locates Red Toryism within the broader context of conservative thinking, tracing some key sources and influences. It discusses the concept of virtue in relation to some earlier Tory efforts to revive medievalist thought. It concludes with an analysis of some potential problems which derive from the attempt to apply a pre-modern form of thought in a multicultural environment.     

Hope in Action: Subversive Eschatology in the Theology of Edward Shillebeeckx and Johann Baptist Metz

Abstract

The neoconservative wing of the Republican party, now in its third generation, has become primarily a movement advocating American global dominion. Dedicated to preventing any nation or group of nations from becoming a great power rival of the United States, the hallmark of the neoconservative movement is its radical faith that the maximal use of American power is good for America and the world.     

Anthropology and alcohol: In search of a new paradigm

Jerrold E. Levy and Stephen J. Kunitz. Indian Drinking: Navajo Practices and Anglo‐American Theories. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974. xii + 257 pp. Tables, notes, appendices, bibliography, and index. $12.50.

William Madsen. The American Alcoholic: The Nature‐Nurture Controversy in Alcoholic Research and Therapy. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1974. xvii + 248 pp. References, author and subject indices. $11.50.     

ENCLOSING THEIR IMMORTAL SOULS: A SURVEY OF TWO AFRICAN AMERICAN CEMETERIES IN GEORGETOWN,SOUTH CAROLINA

Abstract

A cemetery survey was completed in July of 2009 at two African American cemeteries in coastal South Carolina. The objective of this research was to study above-ground artifacts and features in the cemeteries in an effort to better understand life and death for enslaved African and African American communities as evidenced through their mortuary practices. This paper seeks to explore the relationship among African American ideologies about death, cemetery landscape, and the symbolic nature of grave goods.     

The Paradox at the Heart of American Conservatism

Abstract

This essay considers the state of American conservatism focusing initially on social and political institutions and concluding with a few comments on conservatism as an intellectual movement. A paradox is described as lying at the heart of American conservatism: the economic policies supported by conservatives promote economic conditions that are the main causes of the social problems conservatives lament most loudly.     

Progress and parochialism in urban anthropology

Peter C. W. Gutkind. Urban Anthropology: Perspectives on ‘Third World’ Urbanization and Urbanism. New.York: Barnes and Noble Books (with K. Van Gorcum, The Netherlands), 1974. 262 pp. Tables, references, and indices. $22.50.

Wayne A. Cornelius and Felicity M. Trueblood, eds. Latin American Urban Research, Vol. 4: Anthropological Perspectives on Latin American Urbanization. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1974. 320 pp. Tables, figures, and bibliographies. $17.50.     

Middle‐east,Midwest

Barbara C. Asward, ed. Arabic‐Speaking Communities in American Cities. New York: A joint publication of the Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc., and the Association of Arab‐American University Graduates, Inc., 1974. vii + 191 pp. Appendix.     

What Kind of a President Does America Need in 2008?

Abstract

This paper asks, "What kind of a president should Americans elect in 2008?" Claiming that the shortcomings of George W. Bush's administration have a deep basis in a flawed vision, it outlines a worldview that resonates with themes in Reformed theology and that may help to set the tone for a good American presidential administration in our time. The essay also addresses the responsibilities of American voters as they assess candidates for president.     

Snapshots: Images of Men in the United States Colored Troops

Abstract

This article considers the intertwined impact of two very different developments that emerged during the era of the American Civil War. The first concerned the invention and dissemination of new photographic technology that made it possible for ordinary citizens to sit for portraits and come away with multiple copies of new cartes de visite. The second concerned the revolutionary decision by the federal government to recruit African American men into the Union Army. As a result, in the final two years of the war uniformed African American men were having their portraits taken, and those small images began circulating among friends and family members. This speculative essay considers how these small cultural artifacts might have reflected and shaped a world in transition.     

BOOKS RECEIVED

Art Gallaher, Jr. and Harland Padfield, Eds. The Dying Community. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press (School of American Research), 1980. xiv + 305 pp.

Nancy Dorian. Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981. xiv + 206 pp     

Early American technological Edens

Howard P. Segal, Technological Utopianism in American Culture, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1985