Reading Modernity, Modernism and Religion Today

Secularism has produced from within itself a crisis of fragmentation and incoherence that is widespread today. Detailed readings of Spinoza and van Gogh describe the emergence of this crisis, which reconfigured understandings of traditional religious values can be efficacious without compromising the gains made by secularism.

Patrick Grant is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He has published widely on relationships amongst literature, religion and secularism. He has a special interest in literature of the English Renaissance, literary theory, and the literature and culture of modern Northern Ireland. He has published a series of books on the letters of Vincent van Gogh.

Preface Chapter 1 Introduction - The language mosaic - Dialogue, anomie and the conservation of gains - Spinoza and Van Gogh: narratives of transformation Chapter 2 Spinoza's Bad Dream - Spinoza in outline - Metaphysics, mystery and double reading - The critique of religion - Infinite series - Self-interest and seeking truth with others - Conclusion Chapter 3 Interlude: From Modernity to Modernism Chapter 4 Van Gogh and Modernism - Recapitulation and making new - The religious phase - An Enlightenment critique - Romantic self-fashioning and new challenges - Paris, Arles and St. Rémy: the "draughtsman's fist" recovered - Conclusion Chapter 5 Conclusion: Modernity, Modernism and the Religious Question Index