Research Catalog

Title

Characteristic theology of Herman Melville : aesthetics, politics, duplicity / Bradley A. Johnson ; foreword by David Jasper.

Author

Johnson, Bradley A.

Publication

Eugene, Or. : Pickwick Publications, c2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 168 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

What becomes of theology when we think of it aesthetically? What becomes of aesthetics when we think of it theologically? These are the guiding questions that inform both the method and the conclusions of this volume's exploration into the literary world of Herman Melville's "characteristic theology." Far from a specialist work that simply seeks to flesh out the religious disposition and myriad influences of one particular literary giant, Johnson's focus in this volume is instead the identification of a philosophically robust aesthetic conception of theology at its most politically and contemporarily relevant. By way of the Masquerade it sets in motion and in which it fully participates, from its beginning to its very end, this book uses Melville's fiction as vehicle for a radical aesthetic engagement with the theological bases of subjectivity and sovereignty. Through this exploration Johnson conceives the creatively duplicitous character of a materialistic theology whose aim is nothing less than the fashioning of a new heaven and a new earth.

Subject

• Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 > Theology

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-165) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Melville and the problem of self-presentation -- Melville and early German romanticism -- Melville and dialectical materialism -- Melville and aesthetic theology.

ISBN

• 1610973410
• 9781610973410

OCLC

• 768811141
• SCSB-11324891

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library