{"product_id":"reading-character-after-calvin-secularization-empire-and-the-eighteenth-century-novel-hardback-9780813950884","title":"Reading Character After Calvin; Secularization, Empire, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Hardback) 9780813950884","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eReading Character After Calvin\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eSecularization, Empire, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eDavid Mark Diamond (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780813950884\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 1 April 2024\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e278 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm, 0.272 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow Calvinist theology helps us read characters in the early British novel, shedding new light on the origins of modern secularism\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The strangeness of fictional characters in the eighteenth-century novel has been well documented. They are two-dimensional yet complex; they suggest unstable correspondences between the external and the internal. In \u003ci\u003eReading Character after Calvin\u003c\/i\u003e, David Mark Diamond traces the religious genealogy of such figures, arguing that two-dimensionality reproduces through form a model of interpretation that originates in Calvinist Protestant theology.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In Calvin’s teachings, every person possessed a spiritual status as saved or damned, and their external features ostensibly reflected this inward condition. This belief, however, was always haunted by the possibility of a discrepancy between the two. Diamond shows how Calvinism survives in the pages of early novels as a guide to discerning religious hypocrisy and, eventually, distinctions related to imperial race-making. He tracks the migration of Calvinist character detection from its original, sectarian contexts to the worlds of eighteenth-century fiction, revealing the process by which religion came unbound from doctrinal orthodoxy and was grafted onto the ambition of racialized global dominion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Analyzing a diverse set of texts, Diamond offers a fresh account of both how literary character worked and how it works to naturalize, question, or critique the violence of empire.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIntroduction. In Good Faith\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChapter 1. Character Detection\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChapter 2. Empire of Types\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChapter 3. Novels and the \"\u003cbr\u003eNova Effect\"\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChapter 4. The \"\u003cbr\u003eTrue Religion\"\u003cbr\u003e of Abolitionist Fiction\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChapter 5. Gothic Postsecularism\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eConclusion. Subjunctive Criticism\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNotes\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBibliography\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Virginia Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52563739083032,"sku":"9780813950884","price":72.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/reading-character-after-calvin-secularization-empire-and-the-eighteenth-century-novel-hardback-9780813950884","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}