This book offers a history of films with Biblical, spiritual, and supernatural themes. This volume follows the evolution of one of the Hollywood's longest running thematic concerns. From the silent era to the present, Sacred Profanity: Spirituality at the Movies examines the rich diversity of films with spiritual themes—films that reflect our own fascination with the divine and supernatural, while evoking the specific times in which they were created. From Birth of a Nation to Angels and Demons, Sacred Profanity discusses over 180 films with an insightful, movie lover's approach. Coverage encompasses Biblical stories like King of Kings; films about spiritual characters, such as The Nun's Story; foreign masterpieces like The Seventh Seal; movies that incorporate spiritual symbolism, such as Taxi Driver and Cool Hand Luke; horrifying visions of the Satanic like The Exorcist, and controversial works like The Last Temptation of Christ. The book also looks at the history of Hollywood's attempt to maintain moral order through censorship, as well as the growing influence of filmmakers' own spiritual beliefs on the movies we see.

Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. [4] of cover.

In this original and controversial book Professor Rawls argues that Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is the crowning achievement of his sociological endeavour and that since its publication in English in 1915 it has been consistently misunderstood. Rather than a work on primitive religion or the sociology of knowledge, Rawls asserts that it is an attempt by Durkheim to establish a unique epistemological basis for the study of sociology and moral relations. By privileging social practice over beliefs and ideas, it avoids the dilemmas inherent in philosophical approaches to knowledge and morality that are based on individualism and the tendency to privilege beliefs and ideas over practices, both tendencies that dominate western thought. Based on detailed textual analysis of the primary text, this book will be an important and original contribution to contemporary debates on social theory and philosophy.

Poems of revelation and discovery

A humorous, trenchant and fascinating examination of how Western culture's taboo words have evolved over the millennia

An ARTery Best Book of the Year An Art of Manliness Best Book of the Year In a culture that has become progressively more skeptical and materialistic, the desires of the individual self stand supreme, Mark Edmundson says. We spare little thought for the great ideals that once gave life meaning and worth. Self and Soul is an impassioned effort to defend the values of the Soul. “An impassioned critique of Western society, a relentless assault on contemporary complacency, shallowness, competitiveness and self-regard...Throughout Self and Soul, Edmundson writes with a Thoreau-like incisiveness and fervor...[A] powerful, heartfelt book.” —Michael Dirda, Washington Post “[Edmundson’s] bold and ambitious new book is partly a demonstration of what a ‘real education’ in the humanities, inspired by the goal of ‘human transformation’ and devoted to taking writers seriously, might look like...[It] quietly sets out to challenge many educational pieties, most of the assumptions of recent literary studies—and his own chosen lifestyle.” —Mathew Reisz, Times Higher Education “Edmundson delivers a welcome championing of humanistic ways of thinking and living.” —Kirkus Reviews