Jeffrey P. Moran
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195183498
- eISBN:
- 9780190254629
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195183498.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
The question of teaching evolution in public schools is a continuing and frequently heated political issue in America. From Tennessee's Scopes Trial in 1925 to recent battles that have erupted in ...
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The question of teaching evolution in public schools is a continuing and frequently heated political issue in America. From Tennessee's Scopes Trial in 1925 to recent battles that have erupted in Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, and countless other localities, the critics and supporters of evolution have fought nonstop over the role of science and religion in American public life. This book explores the ways in which the evolution debate has reverberated beyond the confines of state legislatures and courthouses. Using extensive research in newspapers, periodicals, and archives, the book shows that social forces such as gender, regionalism, and race have intersected with the debate over evolution in ways that shed light on modern American culture. It investigates, for instance, how antievolutionism deepened the cultural divisions between North and South—northerners embraced evolution as a sign of sectional enlightenment, while southerners defined themselves as the standard bearers of true Christianity. Evolution debates also exposed a deep gulf between conservative Black Christians and secular intellectuals such as W. E. B. DuBois. The book also explores the ways in which the struggle has played out in the universities, on the internet, and even within the evangelical community. Throughout, the book shows that evolution has served as a weapon, as an enforcer of identity, and as a polarizing force both within and without the churches.Less
The question of teaching evolution in public schools is a continuing and frequently heated political issue in America. From Tennessee's Scopes Trial in 1925 to recent battles that have erupted in Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, and countless other localities, the critics and supporters of evolution have fought nonstop over the role of science and religion in American public life. This book explores the ways in which the evolution debate has reverberated beyond the confines of state legislatures and courthouses. Using extensive research in newspapers, periodicals, and archives, the book shows that social forces such as gender, regionalism, and race have intersected with the debate over evolution in ways that shed light on modern American culture. It investigates, for instance, how antievolutionism deepened the cultural divisions between North and South—northerners embraced evolution as a sign of sectional enlightenment, while southerners defined themselves as the standard bearers of true Christianity. Evolution debates also exposed a deep gulf between conservative Black Christians and secular intellectuals such as W. E. B. DuBois. The book also explores the ways in which the struggle has played out in the universities, on the internet, and even within the evangelical community. Throughout, the book shows that evolution has served as a weapon, as an enforcer of identity, and as a polarizing force both within and without the churches.
Robert Chodat
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190682156
- eISBN:
- 9780190682187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190682156.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Unlike Percy and Robinson, Ellison shows minimal interest in religious questions, and in this sense can be seen as part of a larger anticlerical project among some twentieth-century African-American ...
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Unlike Percy and Robinson, Ellison shows minimal interest in religious questions, and in this sense can be seen as part of a larger anticlerical project among some twentieth-century African-American writers. Unlike many other secular black intellectuals, however, he scorns the social sciences. His nonfiction repeatedly distinguishes meaning from matter, purposeful action from bodily motion, and continually highlights both “improvisation” and “black and white fraternity”—concepts that align him both with the pragmatism of his mentor Kenneth Burke and place him in a longstanding tradition of republican sociopolitical thought. His fiction, however, repeatedly emphasizes just how vexed such terms are in the context of modern American life. Invisible Man portrays a world governed unrelentingly by determinism and social–scientific theorizing, and his second novel went unfinished in part because he struggles to portray the mutual recognition that his essays insist is needed between black and white culture.Less
Unlike Percy and Robinson, Ellison shows minimal interest in religious questions, and in this sense can be seen as part of a larger anticlerical project among some twentieth-century African-American writers. Unlike many other secular black intellectuals, however, he scorns the social sciences. His nonfiction repeatedly distinguishes meaning from matter, purposeful action from bodily motion, and continually highlights both “improvisation” and “black and white fraternity”—concepts that align him both with the pragmatism of his mentor Kenneth Burke and place him in a longstanding tradition of republican sociopolitical thought. His fiction, however, repeatedly emphasizes just how vexed such terms are in the context of modern American life. Invisible Man portrays a world governed unrelentingly by determinism and social–scientific theorizing, and his second novel went unfinished in part because he struggles to portray the mutual recognition that his essays insist is needed between black and white culture.
