LEADER 05172nam 2200889 a 450 001 9910455519503321 005 20211001024959.0 010 $a1-4008-1719-6 010 $a9786612753374 010 $a1-4008-2247-5 010 $a1-282-75337-1 010 $a1-4008-1271-2 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400822478 035 $a(CKB)111056486505762 035 $a(EBL)581629 035 $a(OCoLC)700688654 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000242212 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11223053 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000242212 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10310645 035 $a(PQKB)11761064 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC581629 035 $a(OCoLC)51542587 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse35994 035 $a(DE-B1597)446124 035 $a(OCoLC)979749202 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400822478 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL581629 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10035843 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL275337 035 $a(EXLCZ)99111056486505762 100 $a19971008d1998 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurnn#---|u||u 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 14$aThe science of sacrifice$b[electronic resource] $eAmerican literature and modern social theory /$fSusan L. Mizruchi 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton, N.J. $cPrinceton University Press$dc1998 215 $a1 online resource (446 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 0 $a0-691-01506-6 311 0 $a0-691-06892-5 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 371-426) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$tIntroduction --$tCHAPTER ONE: Sacrificial Arts and Sciences --$tCHAPTER TWO: The Return to Sacrifice in Melville and Others --$tCHAPTER THREE: Rites of Passage in an "Awkward Age" --$tCHAPTER FOUR: Du Bois's Gospel of Sacrifice --$tAfterword --$tNotes --$tIndex 330 $aFrom ritual killings to subtle acts of self-denial, the practice and rhetoric of sacrifice has a special centrality in modern American literature. In a compelling interdisciplinary investigation, Susan Mizruchi portrays an episode in American cultural history when the literary movement of realism and the fledgling field of sociology both converged in the belief that sacrifice is basic to sociality. This is a book about the fascination that sacrifice held for writers--principally Herman Melville, Henry James, and W.E.B. Du Bois--and also for those who articulated the main tenets of modern social theory, an inquiry that eventually spans historical events such as public lynchings and the political scapegoating of immigrants a century ago. The execution in Billy Budd Sailor, the death of Du Bois's first-born son in The Souls of Black Folk, Henry James's preoccupation with renunciation and scapegoating, and the self-denying working classes of Norris and Stein all illustrate repeated stagings of sacrificial rituals from a Biblical past. For Mizruchi, the peculiar persistence of this aesthetic construct becomes a guide to a rich theological and social-scientific tradition distinctive to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and including such influential works as Smith's Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, Frazer's Golden Bough, and Ross's Sin and Society. The major features of sacrifice--its original association with spiritual doubt, its function as a form of spiritual economics that sustained divisions between the fortunate and the bereft, and its role in fixing boundaries between aliens and kin--held strong symbolic value for writers struggling to reconcile faith with rationalism, and communal coherence with capitalist expansion. Mizruchi eloquently demonstrates how the conceptual power of sacrifice made it a key mediator of cultural change, from the decline of sympathy and the significance of "race" in an emerging multicultural society to the revival of maternal self-sacrifice. 606 $aAmerican literature$xHistory and criticism 606 $aSacrifice in literature 606 $aLiterature and anthropology$zUnited States 606 $aLiterature and society$zUnited States 606 $aRites and ceremonies in literature 606 $aHuman sacrifice in literature 606 $aSelf-sacrifice in literature 606 $aSocial problems in literature 606 $aScapegoat in literature 606 $aRealism in literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAmerican literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aSacrifice in literature. 615 0$aLiterature and anthropology 615 0$aLiterature and society 615 0$aRites and ceremonies in literature. 615 0$aHuman sacrifice in literature. 615 0$aSelf-sacrifice in literature. 615 0$aSocial problems in literature. 615 0$aScapegoat in literature. 615 0$aRealism in literature. 676 $a810.9/353 700 $aMizruchi$b Susan L$g(Susan Laura)$01050524 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910455519503321 996 $aThe science of sacrifice$92480369 997 $aUNINA