All Good Books Are Catholic Books

Print Culture, Censorship, and Modernity in Twentieth-Century America

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book All Good Books Are Catholic Books by Una Cadegan, Cornell University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Una Cadegan ISBN: 9780801468971
Publisher: Cornell University Press Publication: September 15, 2013
Imprint: Cornell University Press Language: English
Author: Una Cadegan
ISBN: 9780801468971
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication: September 15, 2013
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Language: English

Until the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the stance of the Roman Catholic Church toward the social, cultural, economic, and political developments of the twentieth century was largely antagonistic. Naturally opposed to secularization, skeptical of capitalist markets indifferent to questions of justice, confused and appalled by new forms of high and low culture, and resistant to the social and economic freedom of women—in all of these ways the Catholic Church set itself up as a thoroughly anti-modern institution. Yet, in and through the period from World War I to Vatican II, the Church did engage with, react to, and even accommodate various aspects of modernity. In All Good Books Are Catholic Books, Una M. Cadegan shows how the Church’s official position on literary culture developed over this crucial period.The Catholic Church in the United States maintained an Index of Prohibited Books and the National Legion of Decency (founded in 1933) lobbied Hollywood to edit or ban movies, pulp magazines, and comic books that were morally suspect. These regulations posed an obstacle for the self-understanding of Catholic American readers, writers, and scholars. But as Cadegan finds, Catholics developed a rationale by which they could both respect the laws of the Church as it sought to protect the integrity of doctrine and also engage the culture of artistic and commercial freedom in which they operated as Americans. Catholic literary figures including Flannery O’Connor and Thomas Merton are important to Cadegan’s argument, particularly as their careers and the reception of their work demonstrate shifts in the relationship between Catholicism and literary culture. Cadegan trains her attention on American critics, editors, and university professors and administrators who mediated the relationship among the Church, parishioners, and the culture at large.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Until the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the stance of the Roman Catholic Church toward the social, cultural, economic, and political developments of the twentieth century was largely antagonistic. Naturally opposed to secularization, skeptical of capitalist markets indifferent to questions of justice, confused and appalled by new forms of high and low culture, and resistant to the social and economic freedom of women—in all of these ways the Catholic Church set itself up as a thoroughly anti-modern institution. Yet, in and through the period from World War I to Vatican II, the Church did engage with, react to, and even accommodate various aspects of modernity. In All Good Books Are Catholic Books, Una M. Cadegan shows how the Church’s official position on literary culture developed over this crucial period.The Catholic Church in the United States maintained an Index of Prohibited Books and the National Legion of Decency (founded in 1933) lobbied Hollywood to edit or ban movies, pulp magazines, and comic books that were morally suspect. These regulations posed an obstacle for the self-understanding of Catholic American readers, writers, and scholars. But as Cadegan finds, Catholics developed a rationale by which they could both respect the laws of the Church as it sought to protect the integrity of doctrine and also engage the culture of artistic and commercial freedom in which they operated as Americans. Catholic literary figures including Flannery O’Connor and Thomas Merton are important to Cadegan’s argument, particularly as their careers and the reception of their work demonstrate shifts in the relationship between Catholicism and literary culture. Cadegan trains her attention on American critics, editors, and university professors and administrators who mediated the relationship among the Church, parishioners, and the culture at large.

More books from Cornell University Press

Cover of the book Dialogues between Faith and Reason by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Fifty Early Medieval Things by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Speaking the Unspeakable in Postwar Germany by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Constructive Illusions by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book For God and Globe by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book In the Shadow of FDR by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Moral Commerce by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book On the Irish Waterfront by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Networks of Rebellion by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book A Fiery Gospel by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Out of Practice by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book History, Literature, Critical Theory by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book What Rebels Want by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Thinking in Time by Una Cadegan
Cover of the book Housing the New Russia by Una Cadegan
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy