
Capitalism and Christianity, American Style
William E. Connolly
(Author)Description
Connolly describes how the evangelical-capitalist machine works, how its themes resound across class lines, and how it infiltrates numerous aspects of American life. Proposing changes in sensibility and strategy to challenge this machine, Connolly contends that the liberal distinction between secular public and religious private life must be reworked. Traditional notions of unity or solidarity must be translated into drives to forge provisional assemblages comprised of multiple constituencies and creeds. The left must also learn from the political right how power is infused into everyday institutions such as the media, schools, churches, consumption practices, corporations, and neighborhoods. Connolly explores the potential of a "tragic vision" to contest the current politics of existential resentment and political hubris, explores potential lines of connection between it and theistic faiths that break with the evangelical right, and charts the possibility of forging an "eco-egalitarian" economy. Capitalism and Christianity, American Style is William E. Connolly's most urgent work to date.
Product Details
Publisher | Duke University Press |
Publish Date | April 09, 2008 |
Pages | 192 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9780822342724 |
Dimensions | 9.3 X 6.3 X 0.4 inches | 0.6 pounds |
About the Author
William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent books include Pluralism, also published by Duke University Press; Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed; Why I am Not a Secularist; and The Ethos of Pluralization. His classic study The Terms of Political Discourse won the Benjamin Lippincott Award in 1999. Connolly was the editor of the journal Political Theory from 1980 to 1986.
Reviews
"This is a book that is a must read for anyone seeking to capture the rhizome of US Empire global capitalism and develop a counter-resonance of heterogeneous sub-discourses that express 'pluripotentiality' for a more equalitarian capitalism (p. 25). I would recommend this book as a blueprint for the Obama administration as it sets about the impossible task of disassembling the evangelical-cowboy capitalism resonance machine of vengeance and entitlement that has wrecked havoc on the global economy by its rampant deregulation, imbrication of Church and State, abolishment of civil liberties and using junk science to define global warming as leftist delusion against God's more divine plan."--David M. Boje "Critical Discourse Studies"
"Written primarily from a political science perspective, Connolly's identifications of the spiritual and religious dimensions that dominate economic discourse in the United States provides an insightful and rigorous study on topics that will be (and should be, according to [Stuart] Hall) of interest to cultural studies researchers."--Holly Randell-Moon "Cultural Studies Review"
"A tour de force. . . . The book is not just about political theory, but it is also about a way forward."--Jason Dittmer "Environment and Planning D"
"[A] tour de force. . . . [T]he book is not just about political theory, but it is also about a way forward." - Jason Dittmer, Environment & Planning D: Society and Space
"I immensely enjoyed reading Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. William E. Connolly offers insight, innovation, and wisdom. He brings substantive theorizing to the pressing political concerns of the moment, providing a sense of momentum and sheer energy. This book is relevant, in the strongest sense."--Nigel Thrift, author of Knowing Capitalism
"In these times, we desperately need William E. Connolly's impassioned study of inequality and the destruction of nature, his sheer awe at living-ness itself, his philosophy of immanent naturalism and deployment of the Deleuzian assemblage, and, especially, the interdisciplinary concreteness of his proposals for a resonance machine of resistance on the left. Along with Connolly's description of an ethos, or spiritualization, of academic engagement, a key contribution of this book is to advance what has been dangerously lacking on the left, a powerful analytics of the right's resonance machine and its recognition that the intellectual and the corporeal, the theological and the secular, never exist in purified, 'clean' categories."--Linda Kintz, author of Between Jesus and the Market: The Emotions That Matter in Right-Wing America
"William E. Connolly is a towering figure in contemporary political theory whose profound reflections on democracy, religion, and the tragic unsettle and enrich us. In this powerful work he casts his philosophical gaze on the internal dynamics of the American Empire--especially the role of Christian traditions and capitalist practices. The result is vintage Connolly, namely, indispensable!"--Cornel West, Princeton University
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