Reading the Abrahamic Faiths: Rethinking Religion and Literature

by Emma Mason

Publisher:

Bloomsbury Academic

, 2014

Rethinking religion and literature in a series of chapters by leading international scholars, Reading the Abrahamic Faiths opens up a dialogue between Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Post-Secular literary cultures.

Literary studies has absorbed religion as another interdisciplinary mode of inquiry without always attending to its multifacted potential to question ideologically neutral readings of culture, belief, emotion, politics and inequality. In response, Reading the Abrahamic Faiths contributes to a reevaluation of the nexus between religion and literature that is socially, affectively and materially determined in its sensitivity to the expression of belief.

Each section – Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Post-Secularism – is introduced by a specialist in these respective areas to introduce the critical readings of the texts and discourses that follow.

Features

Section introductions surveying the literatures of each tradition provide context for each chapter's close readings.
Includes chapters written by leading international scholars in the field.
Extends the discipline of religion and literature by reading Islamic, Jewish and global Christian literature.

Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements
Contributors

Religion and literature

1. Emma Mason: 'Re-thinking Religion and Literature'
2. Yvonne Sherwood: 'The Hagaramic and the Abrahamic, or Abraham the non-European'
3. Prasenjit Duara: 'Abrahamic Faiths and Dialogical Transcendence'

Judaism

4. Cynthia Scheinberg: 'Introduction'
5. Neta Stahl: 'Jewish Writers and Nationalist Theology at the Fin-de-Siécle'
6. Jo Carruthers: 'Acts of Hearing in the Book of Esther'
7. Tom Sperlinger: '“Every human being is a cause”: Three re-writings of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael'

Christianity

8. Josh King: 'Introduction'
9. Adriaan van Klinken: 'The Black Messiah, or Christianity and Masculinity in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's The River Between'
10. Mate Vince: '“Tongue far from heart”: Disguises, Lies and Casuistry in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure'
11. Arina Cirstea: 'Joy, Doubt and Wonder: Contemporary Readings of the Annunciation'

Islam

12. Ziauddin Sardar: 'Introduction'
13. Aamer Hussein: 'The Man from Beni Mora'
14. Ziad Elmarsafy: 'On Naguib Mahfouz's Late Style: Remembering Art, Remembering the Self'
15. Maryam Farahani: 'Sufism and Pain: Poetic Procrastination of Unity in Classical Persian Verse Narratives'

Post-Secularism

16. Anthony Paul Smith: 'Introduction'
17. Daniel Whistler: 'The Categories of Secular Time'
18. Nazry Bahrawi: 'Not my Bible's keeper: Saramago's Cain translates postsecular dissent'
19. Manav Ratti, 'The Postsecular and the Postcolonial'

20. Susan Bassnett, 'Afterword'

Praise for Reading the Abrahamic Faiths

The product of a conference titled 'Religious Identities in Literature,' this illuminating collection of essays by a group of distinguished international scholars focuses on the intimate connection between religion, literature, and faith. Collectively, the essays aim to innovate new strategies for exploring the significance of the religious and the secular, as these animating phenomena are brought to consciousness through literary works ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Product Details

• Title: Reading the Abrahamic Faiths: Rethinking Religion and Literature
• Author: Emma Mason
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2014
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781472509932, 9781350003743, 1350003743, 1472509935
• Resource ID: LLS:9781472509932
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-09T10:08:51Z

About Emma Mason

Emma Mason is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, UK, and an editor of Bloombury’s New Directions in Religion and Literature series.