Introduction: re-enchantment, postsecularity, and the return of transendence in western culture -- 1. The Scarlet Letter: puritan imagination and the kerygmatic power of sin -- 2. Henry James's The Europeans: secularity and the descent of the word -- 3. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: modernism and the death of the word -- 4. Immanent Christianity in The Grapes of Wrath -- 5. "In the name of the lost father": postsecular mysticism in on the road -- 6. "I will call them my people": Toni Morrison's postsecular gospel of self and community -- Conclusion: Kerygma and the promises of postsecular imagination in postmodern times
Summary
Claude Le Fustec presents insightful readings of the presence of transcendence and biblical imagination in canonical novels by American writers ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Toni Morrison
