Research Catalog

The science of sacrifice : American literature and modern social theory

Title: The science of sacrifice : American literature and modern social theory / Susan L. Mizruchi.
Author: Mizruchi, Susan L. (Susan Laura)
Publication: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1998.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PS169.S23 M59 1998	Off-site

Details

Description

436 pages; 24 cm

Summary

From ritual killings to subtle acts of self-denial, the practice and rhetoric of sacrifice has a special centrality in modern American literature. In a compelling interdisciplinary investigation, Susan Mizruchi portrays an episode in American cultural history when the literary movement of realism and the fledgling field of sociology both converged in the belief that sacrifice is basic to sociality. This is a book about the fascination that sacrifice held for writers - principally, Herman Melville, Henry James, and W.E.B. Du Bois - and also for those who articulated the main tenets of modern social theory, an inquiry that eventually spans historical events such as public lynchings and the political scapegoating of immigrants a century ago.

Subject

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Sacrificial arts and sciences -- The return to sacrifice in Melville and others -- Rites of passage in an "awkward age" -- Du Bois's gospel of sacrifice.

ISBN

0691015066
9780691015064
0691068925
9780691068923

LCCN

97044317

OCLC

ocm37836108
37836108
SCSB-378855

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library