Afterwords: Hellenism, Modernism, and the Myth of Decadence

By Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. and Jr. Ruprecht, Louis A.

Book Overview

Reading both philosophical and theological texts, this book presents an argument against nostalgia: against the myth of a Golden Age, against the posture that sees "modernity" as a problem to be solved.

This book about nostalgia raises the question of why it has become such a dominant and influential posture in contemporary philosophical and theological writing. The author notes the presence of the word "after" in a great many contemporary academic titles, and notes a spiritual sort of alienation that many feel in the "modern age." Out of this scholarly discontent emerges one of two related attempts: the attempt to return to a pre-modern manner of thinking and being (nostalgia); and the playful flight into some vaguely defined "postmodernity" (utopia). In either case, the common perception is that modernity is a problem, a problem to be avoided or escaped.

Bringing philosophical and theological texts into conversation with one another, the book discovers a startling similarity in the accounts of modernness offered in these disparate idioms. Both are telling a story-a story which, the author argues, is as seductive as it is misguided.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791429334
• ISBN13: 9780791429334
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.3"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher