A Joyfully Serious Man : : The Life of Robert Bellah / / Matteo Bortolini.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Bortolini, Matteo,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (528 p.) :; 16 b/w illus.

A major new biography of the brilliant yet tormented intellectual who transformed the social sciencesRobert Bellah (1927–2013) was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. Trained as a sociologist, he crossed disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of a greater comprehension of religion as both a cultural phenomenon and a way to fathom the depths of the human condition. A Joyfully Serious Man is the definitive biography of this towering figure in modern intellectual life, and a revelatory portrait of an adventurous yet tormented man.Drawing on Bellah's personal papers as well as in-depth interviews with those who knew him, Matteo Bortolini tells the story of an extraordinary scholarly career and an eventful and tempestuous life. He describes Bellah's exile from the United States during the hysteria of the McCarthy years, his crushing personal tragedies, and his intense experiments with sexuality at age fifty. Bellah understood religion as a mysterious human institution that brings together the scattered pieces of individual and collective experiences. Bortolini shows how Bellah championed intellectual openness and innovation through his relentless opposition to any notion of secularization as a decline of religion and his ideas about the enduring tensions between individualism and community in American society.Based on nearly two decades of research, A Joyfully Serious Man is a revelatory chronicle of a leading public intellectual who was both a transformative thinker and a restless, passionate seeker.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface: Writing Bob Bellah -- Acknowledgments -- 1 From Father to Son: Oklahoma to California, 1916–1944 -- 2 A Writer and a Teacher: United States East Coast, 1945–1950 -- 3 Enter Talcott Parsons: Cambridge, MA, 1950–1953 -- 4 Expectations versus Reality: From Cambridge to Montreal, and Back, 1954–1957 -- 5 Becoming an American: From Cambridge to Tokyo, and Back, 1957–1961 -- 6 Time to Leave: Cambridge, 1961–1967 -- 7 “Stand Back and See It All”: Berkeley, 1967–1968 -- 8 “To Put It Bluntly, Religion Is True”: Rome and Cambridge, 1968–1969 -- 9 Beyond Borders: Berkeley, 1969–1971 -- 10 Twilight of the God: From Berkeley to Princeton, and Back, 1970–1973 -- 11 Breaking Covenants: Berkeley, 1973–1976 -- 12 Ashes Alone: United States of America, 1969–1976 -- 13 “We Create Our Planets on the Table” berkeley, 1976–1978 -- 14 Articulating the Real: Berkeley, 1978–1979 -- 15 On the Edge of the Eighties: Berkeley, 1979–1983 -- 16 The Sociologist’s Revenge: United States of America, 1978–1985 -- 17 Hitting the Big Time: United States of America, 1985–1991 -- 18 Looking for the Good Society: United States of America, 1991–1992 -- 19 Time to Leave Again: United States of America, 1993–2000 -- 20 Between Religion and Evolution: North America, 1955–2004 -- 21 “This Big House on the Hill”: Berkeley, 2005–2010 -- 22 Nothing Is Ever Lost: From Berkeley to the World, 2011–2013 -- Epilogue: The Joy of a Serious Life -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index