{"product_id":"the-new-metaphysicals-spirituality-and-the-american-religious-imagination-9780226042800","title":"The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination","description":"American spirituality-with its focus on individual meaning, experience, and exploration-is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. But, as \u003ci\u003eThe New Metaphysicals\u003c\/i\u003e makes clear, contemporary American spirituality has historic roots in the nineteenth century and a great deal in common with traditional religious movements. To explore this world, Courtney Bender combines research into the history of the movement with fieldwork in Cambridge, Massachusetts-a key site of alternative religious inquiry from Emerson and William James to today. Through her ethnographic analysis, Bender discovers that a focus on the new, on progress, and on the way spiritual beliefs intersect with science obscures the historical roots of spirituality from its practitioners and those who study it alike-and shape an enduring set of modern religious possibilities in the process.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCourtney Bender\u003c\/b\u003e is associate professor of religion at Columbia University and author of \u003ci\u003eHeaven's Kitchen: Living with Religion at God's Love We Deliver\u003c\/i\u003e, also published by the University of Chicago Press.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318445117714,"sku":"9780226042800","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_04ecfe7f-1a27-43b8-a8cb-f0d556913add.jpg?v=1727555503","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-new-metaphysicals-spirituality-and-the-american-religious-imagination-9780226042800","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}