Justine S. Murison's Books

Faith in Exposure

Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States

By: Justine S. Murison

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Faith in Exposure

Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States

By: Justine S. Murison

Recent legal history in the United States reveals a hardening tendency to treat religious freedom and sexual and reproductive freedom as competing, even opposing, claims on public life. They are united, though, by the fact that both are rooted in our culture’s understanding of privacy. Faith in Exposure shows how, over the course of the nineteenth century, privacy came to encompass such contradictions—both underpinning the right to sexual and reproductive rights but also undermining them in the name of religious freedom. Drawing on the interdisciplinary field of secular studies, Faith in Exposure brings a postsecular orientation to the historical emergence of modern privacy. The book explains this emergence through two interlocking stories. The first examines the legal and cultural connection of religion with the private sphere, showing how privacy became a moral concept that informs how we debate the right to be shielded from state interference, as well as who will be afforded or denied this protection. This conflation of religion with privacy gave rise, the book argues, to a “secular sensibility” that was especially invested in authenticity and the exposure of hypocrisy in others. The second story examines the development of this “secular sensibility” of privacy through nineteenth-century novels. The preoccupation of the novel form with private life, and especially its dependence on revelations of private desire and sexual secrets, made it the perfect vehicle for suggesting that exposure might be synonymous with morality itself. Each chapter places key authors into wider contexts of popular fiction and periodical press debates. From fears over religious infidelity to controversies over what constituted a modern marriage and conspiracy theories about abolitionists, these were the contests, Justine S. Murison argues, that helped privacy emerge as both a sensibility and a right in modern, secular America.

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Page Count

281

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

151282352X

ISBN 13

9781512823523

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

By: Justine S. Murison

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The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

By: Justine S. Murison

For much of the nineteenth century, the nervous system was a medical mystery, inspiring scientific studies and exciting great public interest. Because of this widespread fascination, the nerves came to explain the means by which mind and body related to each other. By the 1830s, the nervous system helped Americans express the consequences on the body, and for society, of major historical changes. Literary writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe, used the nerves as a metaphor to re-imagine the role of the self amidst political, social and religious tumults, including debates about slavery and the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Representing the 'romance' of the nervous system and its cultural impact thoughtfully and, at times, critically, the fictional experiments of this century helped construct and explore a neurological vision of the body and mind. Murison explains the impact of neurological medicine on nineteenth-century literature and culture.

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Page Count

229

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139497634

ISBN 13

9781139497633

Faith in Exposure

Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States

By: Justine S. Murison

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Faith in Exposure

Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States

By: Justine S. Murison

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

281

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

151282352X

ISBN 13

9781512823523

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

By: Justine S. Murison

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

By: Justine S. Murison

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

229

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139497634

ISBN 13

9781139497633

Book's by Justine S. Murison

Faith in Exposure

Faith in Exposure

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Faith in Exposure

Faith in Exposure

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

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