Book contents
- American Literature in Transition, 1820–1860
- Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Transition
- American Literature in Transition, 1820–1860
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Part I Fractures and Continuities
- Chapter 2 Hemisphere
- Chapter 3 Empire
- Chapter 4 Economy
- Chapter 5 Religion
- Chapter 6 Nature
- Chapter 7 Removal
- Chapter 8 Abolition
- Part II Forms and Formats
- Part III Authors and Figures
- Index
Chapter 5 - Religion
from Part I - Fractures and Continuities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2022
- American Literature in Transition, 1820–1860
- Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Transition
- American Literature in Transition, 1820–1860
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Part I Fractures and Continuities
- Chapter 2 Hemisphere
- Chapter 3 Empire
- Chapter 4 Economy
- Chapter 5 Religion
- Chapter 6 Nature
- Chapter 7 Removal
- Chapter 8 Abolition
- Part II Forms and Formats
- Part III Authors and Figures
- Index
Summary
This essay probes secularism’s normative sociality and its cracks or fault lines, the everyday ways of being that defy its logics. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, white Protestantism became infused into the US public – not as a religion, per se, but as a set of deeply felt social formations, moral norms, and practices of the self. While a secularized Protestantism made the world feel right for some, though, it created exclusions that made it feel wrong for others – made others feel, in fact, like they were wrong in it. This essay attends to secularism’s fissures as a means of confronting nineteenth-century Black and indigenous people’s experiences of the everyday world, carved out of landscapes rife with racial and religious prejudices and violence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- American Literature in Transition, 1820–1860 , pp. 70 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022