Invisible Conversations

Roger Lundin (Ph.D., University of Connecticut) is Blanchard Professor of English, Wheaton College. He is the author of a number of books, including: There Before Us: Religion, Literature, and Culture From Emerson to Wendell Berry , Editor (2007), From Nature to Experience: The American Search for Cultural Authority (2005), and Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief , 2nd ed. (2004).

Introduction by Roger Lundin Part 1 Religion and American Fiction 1. Finding a Prose for God: Religion and American Fiction Denis Donoghue 2. American Literature and/as Spiritual Inquiry Lawrence Buell Part 2 Religion and American Poetry 3. Variety as Religious Experience: The Poetics of the Plain Style Elisa New 4. Keeping the Metaphors Alive: American Poetry and Transformation Barbara Packer Part 3 Literature, Religion, and the African American Experience 5. Genres of Redemption: African Americans, the Bible, and Slavery from Lemuel Haynes to Frederick Douglass Mark A. Noll 6. Balm in Gilead: Memory, Mourning, and Healing in African American Autobiography Albert J. Raboteau 7. The Race for Faith: Justice, Mercy, and the Sign of the Cross in African American Literature Katherine Clay Bassard 8. Forms of Redemption John Stauffer Part 4 Literature, Religion, and American Public Life 9. Hamlet without the Prince: The Role of Religion in Postwar Nonfiction Alan Wolfe 10. ""The Only Permanent State"": Belief and the Culture of Incredulity Andrew Delbanco Part 5 Theology and American Literature 11. How the Church Became Invisible: A Christian Reading of American Literary Tradition Stanley Hauerwas and Ralph C. Wood 12. ""The Play of the Lord"": On the Limits of Critique Roger Lundin Notes Index

Building Jewish is clearly and authoritatively written and is richly illustrated, making it ideal for classroom use as well as a basic scholarly resource. --Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The volume should go far toward reestablishing interest in the religious dimensions of American literature. -Philip F. Gura, Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A must-read for anyone curious about how religion figures within the larger course of American literary and intellectual history. -John Gatta, Sewanee