1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910968610703321

Autore

Sutton-Smith Brian

Titolo

The ambiguity of play / / Brian Sutton-Smith

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, MA, : Harvard University Press, 1997

ISBN

9780674044180

0674044185

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 276 p.)

Disciplina

155

Soggetti

Play - Psychological aspects

Developmental psychology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-271) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Play and Ambiguity -- 2 Rhetorics of Animal Progress -- 3 Rhetorics of Child Play -- 4 Rhetorics of Fate -- 5 Rhetorics of Power -- 6 Rhetorics of Identity -- 7 Child Power and Identity -- 8 Rhetorics of the Imaginary -- 9 Child Phantasmagoria -- 10 Rhetorics of Self -- 11 Rhetorics of Frivolity -- 12 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

From the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Rock to Christian Coalition canvassers working for George W. Bush, Americans have long sought to integrate faith with politics. Few have been as successful as Hollywood evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. During the years between the two world wars, McPherson was the most flamboyant and controversial minister in the United States. She built an enormously successful and innovative megachurch, established a mass media empire, and produced spellbinding theatrical sermons that rivaled Tinseltown's spectacular shows. As McPherson's power grew, she moved beyond religion into the realm of politics, launching a national crusade to fight the teaching of evolution in the schools, defend Prohibition, and resurrect what she believed was the United States' Christian heritage. Convinced that the antichrist was working to destroy the nation's Protestant foundations, she and her allies saw themselves as a besieged minority called by God to join the "old time religion" to American patriotism. Matthew Sutton's definitive study of Aimee



Semple McPherson reveals the woman, most often remembered as the hypocritical vamp in Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, as a trail-blazing pioneer. Her life marked the beginning of Pentecostalism's advance from the margins of Protestantism to the mainstream of American culture. Indeed, from her location in Hollywood, McPherson's integration of politics with faith set precedents for the religious right, while her celebrity status, use of spectacle, and mass media savvy came to define modern evangelicalism.