A collection of essays providing an extensive history of Catholicism in America from numerous perspectives. Roman Catholicism in the United States: A Thematic History takes the reader beyond the traditional ways scholars have viewed and recounted the story of the Catholic Church in America. The collection covers unfamiliar topics such as anti-Catholicism, rural Catholicism, Latino Catholics, and issues related to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the US government. The book continues with fascinating discussions on popular culture (film and literature), women religious, and the work of US missionaries in other countries. The final section of the books is devoted to Catholic social teaching, tackling challenging and sometimes controversial subjects such as the relationship between African American Catholics and the Communist Party, Catholics in the civil rights movement, the abortion debate, issues of war and peace, and Vatican II and the American Catholic Church. Roman Catholicism in the United States examines the history of US Catholicism from a variety of perspectives that transcend the familiar account of the immigrant, urban parish, which served as the focus for so many American Catholics during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Praise for Roman Catholicism in the United States “All of the essays are informative and written in a style suitable to both novices and scholars of American Catholic history.” —Choice “Any scholar currently writing books or articles on American Catholic history would do well to pick up this volume.” —American Catholic Studies “I’ve seen the future of American Catholic studies, and it is in this superb collection of consistently engaging, provocative, and well-written essays. This is now required reading for scholars and students of the Catholic experience in the United States.” —Mark Massa, S.J., Director, The Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, Boston College

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Tracing the development of social reform movements among American Catholics from 1880 to 1925, Deirdre Moloney reveals how Catholic gender ideologies, emerging middle-class values, and ethnic identities shaped the goals and activities of lay activists. Rather than simply appropriate American reform models, ethnic Catholics (particularly Irish and German Catholics) drew extensively on European traditions as they worked to establish settlement houses, promote temperance, and aid immigrants and the poor. Catholics also differed significantly from their Protestant counterparts in defining which reform efforts were appropriate for women. For example, while women played a major role in the Protestant temperance movement beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Catholic temperance remained primarily a male movement in America. Gradually, however, women began to carve out a significant role in Catholic charitable and reform efforts. The first work to highlight the wide-ranging contributions of the Catholic laity to Progressive-era reform, the book shows how lay groups competed with Protestant reformers and at times even challenged members of the Catholic hierarchy. It also explores the tension that existed between the desire to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with American values and the wish to preserve the distinctiveness of Catholic life.

The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies contains essays by both leading figures and younger scholars engaged in the field of postcolonial studies. In this state-of-the-field reader, editors Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks have created a dynamic forum for contributors from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary vantage points to question both the limits and the limitations of postcolonial thought. Since it burst on the academic scene as the "hot" new disciplinary field during the final decade of the twentieth century, postcolonial studies has faced criticism from those who question its "troubling" trajectories, its sometimes suspect epistemological and pedagogical methods, and its relatively narrow focus. With diverse essays that emerge from such disciplines as South Asian, Latin American, Arab, and Jewish studies, this volume responds to skeptics and adherers alike, addressing not only the broad theoretical issues at stake within the field but also the position of the field itself within the academy, as well as its relationship to modern, postmodern, and Marxist discourses. Contributors offer critiques on ahistorical and universalizing tendencies in postcolonial work and confront the need for scholars to attend to issues of class, ideology, and the effects of neocolonial practices. Seeking to broaden the field's traditionally literary spectrum of methodologies, these essayists take up large thematic issues to examine specific sites of colonial activities with all of their historical, political, and cultural significance. Closing the volume is an insightful interview with Homi Bhabha, in which he discusses postcolonial studies in the context of contemporary cultural politics and theory. The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies not only offers an overview of the discipline but also pushes and pulls at the edges of postcolonial studies, offering a comprehensive view of the field's diversity of thought and envisioning clear pathways for its future. Contributors. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Ali Behdad, Homi Bhabha, Daniel Boyarin, Neil Larsen, Saree Makdisi, Joseph Massad, Walter Mignolo, Hamid Naficy, Ngugi Wa Thingo, Timothy B. Powell, R. Radhakrishnan, Bruce Robbins, Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, Ella Shohat, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

Written by one of the foremost historians of American Catholicism, this book presents a comprehensive history of the Roman Catholic Church in America from colonial times to the present. Hennesey examines, in particular, minority Catholics and developments in the western part of the United States, a region often overlooked in religious histories.

In its first half century the United States was visited by scores of curious European travellers who came to investigate the strange new world that was being created in the Western Hemisphere. In their accounts of the experience they praised, or condemned, the institutions and national characteristics spread out before them, seized avidly upon all differences from the European norm, and worried each peculiarity beyond recognition and beyond any just limit of its importance. Americans themselves, with the keen sensitiveness of the young and the boasting enthusiasm natural to vigorous creators of new ideas and institutions, examined the work of their hands and, believing it good, reassured themselves and answered their calumniators in a flood of aggressive replies. Every American interested in a reform movement, a new cult, or a Utopian scheme burst into print, adding another to the rapidly growing list of polemic books and pamphlets. From this variety of sources, it is possible to recapture something of the inward spirit that gave rise to the more familiar and more tangible events of America’s youth.