Abstract
This dissertation argues that a tradition of modern American literary intellectuals, including Vida Dutton Scudder (1861-1954), T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), Claude McKay (1889-1948), Dorothy Day (1897-1980), Walker Percy (1916-1990), and Wendell Berry (1934-), leveraged sacred history to sanction surprisingly radical critiques of modern society. Devotion to the religious past energized, rather than enervated, the imaginations of these socialists, anarchists, and Catholic personalists. When they criticized American capitalist life, these writers looked back to past exemplars of radical community, from sixth-century monks to 1930s radical preachers of the U.S. South. By showing how Christian traditions nourished radical thinkers, Breaking Bread with the Dead challenges both secular Left historiographies that tie the spread of democracy to the demise of traditional religion and religious Right ideologies that assume the equivalence of doctrinal orthodoxy and political conservatism. It offers an alternative history of a modern American literary radical tradition deeply rooted in religious commitment.
Committee Chair
William J. Maxwell
Committee Members
Long Le-Khac, Leigh E. Schmidt, Abram Van Engen, Rafia Zafar
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
English and American Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
Summer 8-15-2016
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/K7Q81BFV
Recommended Citation
McGregor, Jonathan David, "Breaking Bread with the Dead: Social Radicalism and Christian Traditions in Twentieth-Century American Literature" (2016). Arts & Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 870.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/K7Q81BFV
Comments
Permanent URL: https://doi.org/doi:10.7936/K7Q81BFV