Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
- The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Pandemics and the Lesson of History
- Chapter 2 American Futures
- Chapter 3 Engendering Utopia
- Chapter 4 America and/as White Supremacy
- Chapter 5 American Spirituality
- Chapter 6 Black Escapes and Black Wishlands
- Chapter 7 Latinx Belonging in New World Borders
- Chapter 8 Educating Desire
- Chapter 9 Utopia after American Hegemony
- Chapter 10 Technological Fantasies
- Chapter 11 Utopian Spaces
- Chapter 12 Environmentalism and Ecotopias
- Chapter 13 Economic Justice
- Chapter 14 Renewing Democracy
- Chapter 15 The Time of New Histories
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
Chapter 5 - American Spirituality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
- The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Pandemics and the Lesson of History
- Chapter 2 American Futures
- Chapter 3 Engendering Utopia
- Chapter 4 America and/as White Supremacy
- Chapter 5 American Spirituality
- Chapter 6 Black Escapes and Black Wishlands
- Chapter 7 Latinx Belonging in New World Borders
- Chapter 8 Educating Desire
- Chapter 9 Utopia after American Hegemony
- Chapter 10 Technological Fantasies
- Chapter 11 Utopian Spaces
- Chapter 12 Environmentalism and Ecotopias
- Chapter 13 Economic Justice
- Chapter 14 Renewing Democracy
- Chapter 15 The Time of New Histories
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
Summary
This chapter traces the complex legacies of multiple religious traditions, including Christianity, Islam, and syncretistic spirituality, as they inform utopian strands of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American fiction, including the miraculous realism of Toni Morrison, the lyrical historicism of Marilynne Robinson, and the religiously themed science fiction of James Blish and G. Willow Wilson. Apocalyptic concepts, with a strong emphasis on transformative and liberatory possibility, are a recurrent element of these narratives. The term “spirituality” itself is ambiguous, particularly in a national context in which religion has been a source of both oppression and hope. The chapter draws on postsecular critiques of literature and culture that, in John McClure’s terms, indicate “a mode of being and seeing that is at once critical of secular constructions of reality and of dogmatic religion.” It argues that skeptical perspectives do not necessarily militate against the aesthetic and ethical potential of theologically oriented utopian fiction.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024