Is There a Center to American Religious History?

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 380-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Vance Trollinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Martin Marty

Over the past few years I have been dealing with a narrow version of this question, as it has applied to the history of Protestantism in the twentieth century. In our book, Re-Forming the Center: American Protestantism, 1900 to the Present, Douglas Jacobsen and I argued that the two-party model of Protestantism in the United States—conservative vs. liberal, fundamentalist vs. modernist, and so on—does not take into account the remarkable complexity and diversity of the Protestant religious experience in America, and in some sense presents distorted picture of that reality. There were scholars—including Martin Marty, who generously contributed a dissenting essay to our volume—who felt that we had overstated our brief against the two-party paradigm. More relevant for our purposes this evening, there were a number of reviewers who agreed with our critique of the two-party paradigm, but who also expressed disappointment that we provided only the barest outlines of a new or better metaphor or model to explain twentieth-century American Protestantism. While I had not gone into this project thinking that we would end the day with a new interpretive paradigm, I certainly was not surprised by this critique. The very first time I gave a paper on some of our preliminary findings, there was a scholar of U.S. religious history in the audience who squirmed throughout the entirety of my remarks; when I finished, before I had the chance to ask for questions, she blurted out: “I find your argument pretty convincing, but if you can't give me a new model to replace the old one, how am I supposed to teach my course on the history of American Protestantism?” Well, we broaden the topic from Protestantism in the United States to religion in the United States, it would seem that, in many ways, this is the issue we are addressing this evening.

Redefining Censorship

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-142
Author(s):  
Esther B. Schupak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Choice ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Film Images ◽  
History Of

Abstract Because of its potential for fostering antisemitic stereotypes, in the twentieth century The Merchant of Venice has a history of being subject to censorship in secondary schools in the United States. While in the past it has often been argued that the play can be used to teach tolerance and to fight societal evils such as xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, I argue that this is no longer the case due to the proliferation of performance methods in the classroom, and the resultant emphasis on watching film and stage productions. Because images – particularly film images – carry such strong emotional valence, they have the capacity to subsume other pedagogical aspects of this drama in their emotional power and memorability. I therefore question whether the debate over teaching this play is truly a question of ‘censorship’, or simply educational choice.

Buddhism and Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeana McNicholl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Buddhist Studies ◽  
Race And Racialization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race Ethnicity

This chapter takes a step toward the theorization of discourses of race and racialization within the American Buddhist context. Far from being neutral observers, Buddhist Studies scholars have participated in the racialization of particular American Buddhisms. After mapping the landscape of key works on race, ethnicity, and American Buddhism, this chapter takes as a case study a collection of black Buddhist publications that reflect on race and ethnicity. Thus far, scholarship has ignored black Buddhists, yet black Buddhist reflections on race challenge dominant paradigms for the interpretation of the history of Buddhism and Buddhist teachings in the United States. This chapter concludes with suggestions for future avenues for research, including ways that we may connect the work of black Buddhists to the wider context of American religious history and American engagements with Asia.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Jason Lustig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This chapter considers the overall impact of the twentieth-century proliferation of archive activities in Jewish life and the rising paradigm of total archives in particular. By looking at the development of Jewish archiving in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine, we see the concrete manifestation of the impulses of a “time to gather” in Jewish cultures around the world. These efforts represent a kind of community-based archives, but also the internal tensions: What happens when there is a widespread understanding of the value of archives, and they represent resources of cultural capital worth fighting for? This conclusion also places the history of Jewish archives and the struggles to “own” the past in the broader context of the emerging information society. Altogether, this history indicates contentious struggles over what it means to have control over history in its most practical terms.

Jehovah's Witnesses as Un-Americans? Scriptural Injunctions, Civil Liberties, and Patriotism

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1081-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZOE KNOX
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Jehovah’S Witnesses ◽  
Jehovah's Witnesses ◽  
Corporate Body

In the United States, the steadfast refusal of the Jehovah's Witnesses to perform some of the most basic rituals of citizenship has led champions of Americanism to cast them as unpatriotic and even seditious. The Watch Tower Society, the corporate body of the Witnesses, has responded to these accusations by presenting Witnesses as upstanding citizens, only ever departing from the letter of the law when there is a conflict between secular legal directive and scriptural injunction. This essay argues that the gulf between the popular perception of the Witnesses as poor citizens, particularly during the middle decades of the twentieth century, and the society's own representation of its members as assets to their communities highlights the contested and mutable nature of the label un-American. Furthermore, it argues that there is a paradox in the place of the Jehovah's Witnesses in modern American history: though operating beyond the pale of understood norms of citizenship, they have been fundamental to shaping the First Amendment freedoms enjoyed by all citizens. It seeks to contribute to two largely unwritten histories, namely the place of the Witnesses in American religious history, and the ever-changing yet resolutely politicized concept of the un-American.

The Evolution of the Arctic Submarine

1984 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred S. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jules Verne ◽  
History Of ◽  
John Wilkins

This paper examines the evolution of the arctic submarine and the ever-increasing scientific and commercial potential which have accompanied this evolution over the past 340 years. It is a sporadic history of arctic submarine ideas, concepts and actual experiences with vessels at sea. It happens to be a history that is largely American, with important additions as a result of the experiences of the Germans, Soviets and the British, particularly during World War II. Finally, it is a history in which five early visionaries in particular stand out: Bishop John Wilkins of England; Jules Verne of France; Professor Anschutz-Kampfe of Germany; the submarine designer Simon Lake, of the United States — whose influence extended over four decades until well into the twentieth century; and Sir Hubert Wilkins of Australia.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jason Lustig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
Modern Jewish History ◽  
History Of

The introduction presents the book’s core argument that twentieth-century Jewish archives were not just about the past but also about the future: We can look to a process whereby Jews turned increasingly toward archives as anchors of memory in a rapidly changing world. Jews in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine all sought to gather the files of the past in order to represent their place in Jewish life and articulate a vision of the future. It situates these projects in the history of community-based archiving and archival theory and methodology, as well as Jewish history at large. It also dives into the ways we can see archive making as a metaphor for the broader patterns in modern Jewish history, as Jews sought to gather the sources and resources of their culture both before the Holocaust and especially in its aftermath.

Redefining Censorship

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-142
Author(s):  
Esther B. Schupak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Choice ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Film Images ◽  
History Of

Because of its potential for fostering antisemitic stereotypes, in the twentieth century The Merchant of Venice has a history of being subject to censorship in secondary schools in the United States. While in the past it has often been argued that the play can be used to teach tolerance and to fight societal evils such as xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, I argue that this is no longer the case due to the proliferation of performance methods in the classroom, and the resultant emphasis on watching film and stage productions. Because images – particularly film images – carry such strong emotional valence, they have the capacity to subsume other pedagogical aspects of this drama in their emotional power and memorability. I therefore question whether the debate over teaching this play is truly a question of ‘censorship’, or simply educational choice.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Hendrickson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
History Of

The book concludes by revisiting the metaphor of religious ownership and how it has been brought to bear on the history of the Santuario; the chapter also provides suggestions as to how this metaphor could be fruitfully applied to other contexts. The conclusion then turns to why the Santuario’s history is so important. First, as Catholics continue to be the largest denomination in the United States, it is essential that we better understand this largest of all Catholic pilgrimage sites in the United States. Second, as Hispanics grow in importance as the nation’s largest minority group, it becomes more and more important that we understand their history and religious heritage. The history of the Santuario de Chimayó is an essential part of American religious history.

The Shopping Mall

Foundations ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-163
Author(s):  
Sam Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
The United States ◽  
Shopping Mall ◽  
Shopping Malls ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
First Time

This chapter tackles the history of the shopping mall in Britain. It argues that unlike shopping malls in the United States or nations that were urbanizing for the first time, shopping malls in Britain emerged in tense negotiation with a state-directed and developmental retail infrastructure established a generation earlier. The chapter discusses the distinction between two types of space: the shopping mall and shopping precinct in order to show how a qualitatively new urban form arose in Britain in the last third of the twentieth-century. It presents the history of the shopping mall which allows us to see how during this period a new relationship between the consumer, state, and economy emerged in Britain. The chapter explores the shopping mall's distinctive contribution to late-twentieth-century British life by historicizing three of its most important features. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates how the shopping mall in Britain emerged from the ashes of a developmental compact between urban planning and the management of consumer demand. It investigates how shopping mall developers in Britain replicated a globally standardized type of urban space, aligning parts of Britain's built environment with that of the United States and world.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Altman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Comparative Religion ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

The epilogue examines what the genealogy of “heathen,” “Hindoo,” and “Hindu” means for the study of American religious history and religious studies. It argues that the various projects of comparative religion that included representations of heathens, Hindoos, and Hindus must be incorporated into the larger history of religious studies. As the previous chapters have shown, definitions of heathen, Hindoo, Hindu, and Hinduism emerged from American debates about the category “religion.” The epilogue gestures toward a history that would locate religious studies within the history of religion in the United States and cites William James as a possible starting point for such a history.

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