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(2010) Intersections in Christianity and critical theory, Dordrecht, Springer.
The secular dream of a Christian utopia
American studies and political theology
pp. 148-161
The academic effort to establish an integrated approach to the study of American national culture begins in the 1920s and takes formal shape with the institutional organization of American Studies after the Second World War. Within American Studies, scholarship on American Puritans has an important place, with Puritanism appearing either in discussions of religion as a cultural theme or of theology as a technology of self-fashioning and nation-making. For some scholars, the Puritan past is the basis of America's exceptional status. For others, such belief is mere ideological affirmation for specific historical conjectures. This study will attempt to re-assess the prevalence of the Puritan legacy in some major texts of American Studies, and to trace the responses to the secular variations/extensions of the Puritan idea of exceptionalism in the relentless effort to define America.
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(2010)., The secular dream of a Christian utopia: American studies and political theology, in C. Falke (ed.), Intersections in Christianity and critical theory, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 148-161.
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