ebooks Tartan For Me!: Suggested Tartans for Scottish; Scotch-Irish; Irish; and North American Surnames with Lists of Clan; Family and District Tartans by Philip D. Smith Jr. in History

Description

This book provides a new rationale for "religious criticism" in American society. First; Dean shows why today's academic intellectuals are relatively indifferent to questions of meaning in America; pointing to the loss of American "exceptionalism;" the professionalization of the academy; and the rise of post-structural criticism. He then shows how intellectuals may reclaim a prophetic role by offering a new theory of the nature of religious thought. Tracing this theory to a twentieth-century emphasis on conventions; Dean provides a way to understand how imaginative social constructions can become active historical conventions; with real historical force. He suggests that the sacred itself begins as an imaginative construct and becomes a convention; thus working as an active; "living" force in history. Finally; Dean argues that religious critics must now reclaim a responsibility for shaping their society's sacred conventions.