Profane: Sacrilegious Expression in a Multicultural Age (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520277229)

Humans have been uttering profane words and incurring the consequences for millennia. But contemporary events--from the violence in 2006 that followed Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed to the 2012 furor over the Innocence of Muslims video--indicate that controversy concerning blasphemy has reemerged in explosive transnational form. In an age when electronic media transmit offense as rapidly as profane images and texts can be produced, blasphemy is bracingly relevant again.

In this volume, a distinguished cast of international scholars examines the profound difficulties blasphemy raises for modern societies. Contributors examine how the sacred is formed and maintained, how sacrilegious expression is conceived and regulated, and how the resulting conflicts resist easy adjudication. Their studies range across art, history, politics, law, literature, and theology. Because of the global nature of the problem, the volume's approach is comparative, examining blasphemy across cultural and geopolitical boundaries.

Author: Christopher S. Grenda
ISBN-10: 0520277228
ISBN-13: 9780520277229
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 08/15/2014
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 09/12/2014 pg. 18