The Anthem Companion to Robert N. Bellah (Anthem Companions to Sociology)

'The Anthem Companion to Robert Bellah' is the first major collection of writings on the life and work of one of the foremost twentieth-century sociologists of religion. Bellah's work was central in many fields: the sociology of Japanese religion, the relationships between sociology and the humanities, the relationship between American religion and politics, the cultures of modern individualism, and evolution and society. During an intellectual career which spanned six decades, Bellah occupied a central position within at least three major intellectual movements: structural-functionalism and modernization theory in the 1950s and the 1960s; interpretive social science, which he helped create in the early 1970s along with Clifford Geertz and Peter Berger; and the so-called Axial age revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s. More often than not, Bellah's work was on the edge of social scientific research; his seminal work on civil religion in the early 1970s created a huge debate across disciplines which continues to this day; his co-authored book 'Habits of the Heart' (1985) was a bestseller and the object of sustained debate in the general public sphere; his last magnum opus 'Religion in Human Evolution', published at 84, was a monument to an extraordinary scholarly and intellectual career. [NP] The richness of Bellah's work is the object of this collection of essays by top American and European scholars from the social sciences and humanities. Each essay has a double character: it introduces a single topic in an accessible and complete manner, and then presents a reflection on the viability and import of Bellah's ideas for interpreting contemporary phenomena. Among the authors are some of Bellah's students who became top scholars in their fields, as well as younger scholars. From a disciplinary point of view, the list includes sociologists (Gorski, Torpey, Boy, Guhin, Libeck), historians (Borovoy, Barshay) and philosophers (Tipton, Lequire) to reflect the diversity of Bellah's work. | "The Anthem Companion to Robert N. Bellah" is the first major collection of essays on the life and work of Robert N. Bellah (1927–2013), one of the foremost sociologists of religion of the twentieth century. Bellah's work was central to many fields: the sociology of Japanese religion; the relationship between sociology and the humanities; the relationship between American religion and politics; the cultures of modern individualism; evolution and society. Bellah's seminal work on "civil religion" in the early 1970s created...

"The Anthem Companion to Robert N. Bellah" is the first major collection of essays on the life and work of Robert N. Bellah (1927–2013), one of the foremost sociologists of religion of the twentieth century. Bellah’s work was central to many fields: the sociology of Japanese religion; the relationship between sociology and the humanities; the relationship between American religion and politics; the cultures of modern individualism; evolution and society. Bellah’s seminal work on “civil religion” in the early 1970s created a huge debate across the disciplines that continues into the present times; his coauthored book "Habits of the Heart" (1985) was a best seller and the object of sustained discussion in the general public sphere; his last magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution, published at 84, was a monument to an extraordinary scholarly and intellectual career. The object of this collection of essays by top American and European scholars from the social sciences and humanities is to highlight the richness of Bellah’s work. Each essay has a double character: it introduces a single topic in an accessible and complete way and then presents a reflection on the viability and import of Bellah’s ideas for interpreting contemporary phenomena.

"In his long career Robert N. Bellah repeatedly crossed the boundaries between disciplines as well as those separating the academic field from the public sphere. Nevertheless, he consistently introduced himself as a sociologist of religion and was identified by others as such. A cursory look at existing literature confirms not only that Bellah's colleagues readily accepted his self-presentation, but also that they regarded him as an outstanding member of the profession. During his first moment of celebrity in the mid-1970s, for example, he was called "one of a very small number of contemporary pioneers in the sociology of religion," and some critics even feared that his growing eminence would cushion his work from rational critique (Stauffer 1975BIB-085; Johnson 1977BIB-064). Thirty years later, a piece published in the newsletter of the American Sociological Association styled Bellah as "the nation's preeminent scholar in the sociology of religion," while a symposium published in the Chronicle of Higher Education upgraded him to "one of sociology's most influential scholars."11 After all, in his seminal 2004 ASA presidential address Michael Burawoy (2005BIB-039) had already canonized Habits of the Heart as a classic of public sociology along with Riesman's The Lonely Crowd, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folks, and Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma. The 2013 obituaries cited in the opening section were but the tip of a massive, and very old, iceberg. In fact, Bellah's positioning within the sociology of religion, and sociology in general"-- Provided by publisher 'The Anthem Companion to Robert Bellah' is the first major collection of writings on the life and work of one of the foremost twentieth-century sociologists of religion. Bellah's work was central in many fields: the sociology of Japanese religion, the relationships between sociology and the humanities, the relationship between American religion and politics, the cultures of modern individualism, and evolution and society. His seminal work on civil religion in the early 1970s created a huge debate across disciplines which continues to this day. His co-authored book 'Habits of the Heart' (1985) was a bestseller and the object of sustained debated in the general public sphere; his last magnum opus 'Religion in Human Evolution', published at 84, was a monument to an extraordinary scholarly and intellectual career. The richness of Bellah's work is the object of this collection of essays by top American and European scholars from the social sciences and humanities. Each essay has a double character: it introduces a single topic in an accessible and complete manner, and then presents a reflection on the viability and import of Bellah's ideas for interpreting contemporary phenomena