Challenging Modernity

Robert N. Bellah (1927–2013) was the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His many books include Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011).Richard Madsen is distinguished research professor and director of the UC-Fudan Center for Research on Contemporary China at the University of California, San Diego.William M. Sullivan is senior scholar at the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.Ann Swidler is a professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.Steven M. Tipton is Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion at Emory University and its Candler School of Theology. Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton are coauthors of the landmark book Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985).

• AcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroduction, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. TiptonPart I. Diagnosing Modernity1. The Modern Project in the Light of Human Evolution, by Robert N. Bellah2. Turning Off Nature’s Thermostats: Technology, Ecology, and Deep History, by Kyle Harper3. Thermostatlessness: The Project of Modernity and the Process of Modernization: Reflections on Robert Bellah’s Account of the Late Modern Predicament, by Hartmut RosaPart II. The Modern Project4. Prologue in Heaven (or Hell) to the Modern Project, by Robert N. Bellah5. Culture and Hope: Reflections on Bellah’s Unfinished Project, by Ana Marta González6. Axiality and the Critique of Power, by Alan Strathern7. Organic Social Ethic: Universalism Without Egalitarianism, by Hans JoasPart III. The Challenge of Modernity8. The Tillich Lecture: Paul Tillich and the Challenge of Modernity, by Robert N. Bellah9. On the Search for “A Serious Ethical Form of Individualism”: Bellah, Tillich, and the Anthropology of Christian Individualism, by Joel Robbins10. “Disenchantment of the World” or Fragmentation of the Sacred?, by Philip GorskiConclusion, by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. TiptonContributorsIndex

Robert Bellah is one of the most important American social scientists and public intellectuals of the last sixty years. Challenging Modernity contributes to a much needed discussion of all the urgent critical issues which we are facing today.