Sacred Estrangement analyzes certain works by important American writers and thinkers in the context of the &"rhetoric of conversion.&" Such analysis is especially valuable because it provides a reliable index of the relationship between the self and larger communities. Traditionally, &"conversion&" has served a socializing function, signifying that one has come into alignment with certain linguistic, behavioral, and cultural expectations. The socialization process is particularly apparent in the Christian conversion narratives of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries: by publicly testifying to a conversion experience, believers became empowered members, not only of God's elect community but also of a local population. As modern autobiography developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Christian pattern was secularized and individualized. Conversion became a model for many kinds of psychological change. With the coming of the twentieth century, however, the authors upon whom Peter Dorsey focuses, including William and Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright, radically revised conversion rhetoric. If conversion had traditionally linked the search for illumination with the search for a defined social role, these writers increasingly used conversion as an index of estrangement from mainstream America. Dorsey documents this profound change in the way American intellectuals defined the &"self,&" not in terms of personal orientation toward or away from a given community, but as a resistance to such an orientation altogether, as if social forces by their &"nature&" were a threat to personal identity.

Sacred Estrangement analyzes certain works by important American writers and thinkers in the context of the &"rhetoric of conversion.&" Such analysis is especially valuable because it provides a reliable index of the relationship between the self and larger communities. Traditionally, &"conversion&" has served a socializing function, signifying that one has come into alignment with certain linguistic, behavioral, and cultural expectations. The socialization process is particularly apparent in the Christian conversion narratives of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries: by publicly testifying to a conversion experience, believers became empowered members, not only of God's elect community but also of a local population. As modern autobiography developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Christian pattern was secularized and individualized. Conversion became a model for many kinds of psychological change. With the coming of the twentieth century, however, the authors upon whom Peter Dorsey focuses, including William and Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright, radically revised conversion rhetoric. If conversion had traditionally linked the search for illumination with the search for a defined social role, these writers increasingly used conversion as an index of estrangement from mainstream America. Dorsey documents this profound change in the way American intellectuals defined the &"self,&" not in terms of personal orientation toward or away from a given community, but as a resistance to such an orientation altogether, as if social forces by their &"nature&" were a threat to personal identity.

This book is about how to handle coping with estrangement as one person to another being the estranged. It does not cover estrangement in the form of marriage or divorce, or being estranged from a friend. While it is possible for multiple estrangements to occur simultaneously, the book one focuses on one person to another. It uses the bible, and information that I learned from the Holy Spirit to the reader learn to live with estrangement, and improve the quality of their lives at the same time. The book contains journal entries that the reader can do if they choose. This book is motivational, inspirational, and is not a behavioral science approach to coping with estrangement, but is solely a Christian’s perspective.

"Examines the influential role of visual images in reinforcing the efforts of Spain's Christian-ruled kingdoms to renegotiate the role of their Jewish minority following the territorial expansions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries"--Provided by publisher.