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About Religion: Economies of Faith in
Virtual Culture
by Mark C. Taylor
University of Chicago Press
June 1999
"Religion," Mark C. Taylor maintains, "is most
interesting where it is least obvious." From global financial
networks to the casinos of Las Vegas, from images flickering
on computer terminals to steel sculpture, material culture bears
unexpected traces of the divine. In a world where the economies
of faith are obscure, yet pervasive, Taylor shows that approaching
religion directly is less instructive than thinking about it.
Traveling from high culture to pop culture and back again, About
Religion approaches cyberspace and Las Vegas through Hegel and
Kant and reads Melville's The Confidence-Man through the film
Wall Street. As astonishing juxtapositions and associations
proliferate, formerly uncharted territories of virtual culture
disclose theological vestiges, showing that faith in contemporary
culture is as unavoidable as it is elusive.
The most accessible presentation of Taylor's revolutionary ideas
to date, About Religion gives us a dazzling and disturbing vision
of life at the end of the old and beginning of the new millennium.
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