Challenging Modernity
Published on 16. April 2024
Book
Hardback
376 pages
978-0-231-21488-9 (ISBN)
Description
From the 1960s until his death in 2013, Robert N. Bellah was the preeminent figure in the study of religion and society. He broke new ground in mapping the religious dimensions of human experience, from the great breakthroughs of the first millennium BCE to the paradoxes of American civic life. In three final essays, published here for the first time, Bellah grapples with the contradictions of modernity, and seven leading thinkers respond with profound, exhilarating new perspectives on our present predicament.
Challenging Modernity critically assesses the modern project to shed light on the tensions between its transcendent aspirations and the perils we now face. Its contributors analyze the roots of the collapse of the political, economic, and cultural institutions that promised perpetual progress but now threaten global catastrophe. Reflecting the range of Bellah's scholarship, they span the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. They extend Bellah's insight that only deep historical, cultural, and religious understanding can help us meet modernity's harrowing challenges by sharing responsibility for the global interdependence of our common fate.
Challenging Modernity critically assesses the modern project to shed light on the tensions between its transcendent aspirations and the perils we now face. Its contributors analyze the roots of the collapse of the political, economic, and cultural institutions that promised perpetual progress but now threaten global catastrophe. Reflecting the range of Bellah's scholarship, they span the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. They extend Bellah's insight that only deep historical, cultural, and religious understanding can help us meet modernity's harrowing challenges by sharing responsibility for the global interdependence of our common fate.
Reviews / Votes
Robert Bellah is one of the most important American social scientists and public intellectuals of the last sixty years. Challenging Modernity contributes to a much needed discussion of all the urgent critical issues which we are facing today. -- Jose Casanova, author of <i>Public Religions in the Modern World</i> There is no other book like this, nor is there likely to be one, and there was no better team to work together on this effort to advance Bellah's thinking into his planned next book and beyond. Challenging Modernity reveals Bellah's last writing and does an admirable job of raising Bellah's themes about the enduring tensions that bedevil modern life. It will take an honored place as the concluding volume in a remarkable shelf of studies in the distinguished career of one of sociology's greatest contemporary minds. -- Mark Juergensmeyer, author of <i>Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State</i> The editors and contributors engage Bellah's concerns with brilliant explorations of history, social theory, religion, and philosophy, diagnosing the predicaments of modernity and providing guides to the perplexed...Recommended. * Choice * The excellent response essays offer numerous touchstones for picking up where Bellah left off, refining the conceptual tools in his theory of social evolution and expanding its comparative reach beyond Western modernity. * Religious Studies Review * The book contains an arsenal of moral insights for thinkers to take up against our impending doom. * Contemporary Sociology *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-231-21488-9 (9780231214889)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Robert N. Bellah | Richard Madsen | William M. Sullivan
Challenging Modernity
E-Book
04/2024
1st Edition
Columbia University Press
€33.99
Available for download
Persons
Robert N. Bellah (1927-2013) was the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His many books include Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011).
Richard Madsen is distinguished research professor and director of the UC-Fudan Center for Research on Contemporary China at the University of California, San Diego.
William M. Sullivan is senior scholar at the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.
Ann Swidler is a professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.
Steven M. Tipton is Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion at Emory University and its Candler School of Theology.
Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton are coauthors of the landmark book Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985).
Richard Madsen is distinguished research professor and director of the UC-Fudan Center for Research on Contemporary China at the University of California, San Diego.
William M. Sullivan is senior scholar at the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.
Ann Swidler is a professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.
Steven M. Tipton is Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion at Emory University and its Candler School of Theology.
Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton are coauthors of the landmark book Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985).
Content
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
Part I. Diagnosing Modernity
1. The Modern Project in the Light of Human Evolution, by Robert N. Bellah
2. Turning Off Nature's Thermostats: Technology, Ecology, and Deep History, by Kyle Harper
3. Thermostatlessness: The Project of Modernity and the Process of Modernization: Reflections on Robert Bellah's Account of the Late Modern Predicament, by Hartmut Rosa
Part II. The Modern Project
4. Prologue in Heaven (or Hell) to the Modern Project, by Robert N. Bellah
5. Culture and Hope: Reflections on Bellah's Unfinished Project, by Ana Marta Gonzalez
6. Axiality and the Critique of Power, by Alan Strathern
7. Organic Social Ethic: Universalism Without Egalitarianism, by Hans Joas
Part III. The Challenge of Modernity
8. The Tillich Lecture: Paul Tillich and the Challenge of Modernity, by Robert N. Bellah
9. On the Search for "A Serious Ethical Form of Individualism": Bellah, Tillich, and the Anthropology of Christian Individualism, by Joel Robbins
10. "Disenchantment of the World" or Fragmentation of the Sacred?, by Philip Gorski
Conclusion, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
Contributors
Index
Preface
Introduction, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
Part I. Diagnosing Modernity
1. The Modern Project in the Light of Human Evolution, by Robert N. Bellah
2. Turning Off Nature's Thermostats: Technology, Ecology, and Deep History, by Kyle Harper
3. Thermostatlessness: The Project of Modernity and the Process of Modernization: Reflections on Robert Bellah's Account of the Late Modern Predicament, by Hartmut Rosa
Part II. The Modern Project
4. Prologue in Heaven (or Hell) to the Modern Project, by Robert N. Bellah
5. Culture and Hope: Reflections on Bellah's Unfinished Project, by Ana Marta Gonzalez
6. Axiality and the Critique of Power, by Alan Strathern
7. Organic Social Ethic: Universalism Without Egalitarianism, by Hans Joas
Part III. The Challenge of Modernity
8. The Tillich Lecture: Paul Tillich and the Challenge of Modernity, by Robert N. Bellah
9. On the Search for "A Serious Ethical Form of Individualism": Bellah, Tillich, and the Anthropology of Christian Individualism, by Joel Robbins
10. "Disenchantment of the World" or Fragmentation of the Sacred?, by Philip Gorski
Conclusion, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
Contributors
Index