Secularism In Antebellum America. John LardasModern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Abstract

Secularism In Antebellum America. John Lardas Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Theological penchants and methodological constraints have haunted the study of American religious historiography since its advent. Modern's work finds precedence in this field; however, Secularism in Antebellum America challenges many of the commonly accepted theorems of relevant and preceding works in this discipline. Modern offers postmodern examination of mid-nineteenth-century Protestant, secular, American culture; secularism for Modern is a conceptual environment-emergent since at least the Protestant Reformation and early Enlightenment-that has made 'religion' recognizable and vital thing in the world (7). Thus secularism in its various forms is always already caught up in the matrices of religion per se, theme Modern develops throughout the work. book operates primarily through the hermeneutic of metaphysics; Modern elucidates mechanisms by which evolving technology in various contexts-all within mid-nineteenth-century America-impacted language, subjectivity, and religion/secularism in modernity. book's theoretical density is accounted for in its lengthy introduction, and the variety of examples employed are encountered before opening the book; the subtitle reads as follows: With Reference to Ghosts, Protestant Subcultures, Machines, and Their Metaphors; Featuring Discussions of Mass Media, Moby-Dick, Phrenology, Anthropology, Sing Sing State Penitentiary and Sex With New Motive Power.The first chapter, Evangelical Secularism and Measure of Leviathan, builds upon Modern's previously published essay (Church History, 77-A. 2008) and offers analysis of specific evangelical media practices; Modern states, The difference that new media technologies and semiotic strategies made in recasting the production, distribution, and reception of evangelical words was substantial in making secularism metaphysical solvent (91). Chapter 2, Toward Genealogy of presents several rigorous examinations of spirituality's different connotations and forms of embodiment; Modern puts forth, Spirituality, I contend, emerged from the differential tension between evangelical and liberal appropriations of Scottish Common Sense (131). second chapter also discusses how phrenology impacted various Protestant sects.The third chapter is titled A Short Biography of Lewis Henry Morgan with Curious Asides on the Affect of Spirituality & Emergence of Anthropological Comprehension. biographical account of Morgan is perhaps the book's clearest example of secularism's complex and ambivalent subsistence. …