Bøker av Matthew J. Smith

This book challenges the status quo of studies in literature and religion by returning to "experience" as a bridge between theory and practice. Essays focus on keywords of religious experience and demonstrate their applications in drama, fiction, and poetry. Each chapter explores the broad significance of its keyword as a category of psychological and social behavior and tracks its unique articulation by individual authors, including Conrad, Beecher Stowe and Melville. Together, the chapters construct a critical foundation for studying literature not only from the perspectives of theology and historicism but from the ways that literary experience reflects, reinforces, and sometimes challenges religious experience.

Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of ""the theatrical."" By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture.

Argues that the period from 1934 until the rise of dictator Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier to the presidency in 1957 constituted modern Haiti's greatest moment of political promise. This title emphasizes the key role that radical groups, particularly Marxists and black nationalists, played in shaping contemporary Haitian history.