Religious Imaging in Millennialist America - Dark Gnosis

Ashley Crawford investigates how such figures as Ben Marcus, Matthew Barney, and David Lynch-among other artists, novelists, and film directors-utilize religious themes and images via Christianity, Judaism, and Mormonism to form essentially mutated variations of mainstream belief systems. He seeks to determine what drives contemporary artists to deliver implicitly religious imagery within a 'secular' context. Particularly, how religious heritage and language, and the mutations within those, have impacted American culture to partake in an aesthetic of apocalyptism that underwrites it.

List of contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: American Gnosis.- Chapter 2. Delirium: A brief history of America's religious founding(s).-Chapter 3: Dualism: An exploration of good and evil via David Lynch's films.-Chapter 4 Delusion: On Mormon and Masonic symbolism in Matthew Barney's CREMASTER films.- Chapter 5: Deconstruction: On Judaic law and the apocalypse of language in Ben Marcus' The Flame Alphabet.- Chapter 6: Dereliction and Defecation: On the religious underpinnings in Matthew Barney's Subliming Vessel and Ben Marcus' Leaving the Sea and the apocalyptic imaging of Matthew Barney's River of Fundament.- Chapter 7. Dark Gnosis.

About the author

Ashley Crawford is a freelance cultural critic based in Melbourne, Australia, and is the author of a number of books on Australian culture.

Product details

• Authors: Ashley Crawford
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 02.10.2018
• EAN: 9783319991719
• ISBN: 978-3-31-999171-9
• No. of pages: 316
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 21 mm x 218 mm
• Weight: 566 g
• Illustrations: VIII, 316 p.
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Miscellaneous; Verstehen, Populäre Kultur, Darstellende Künste, B, Sociology of Religion, Popular Culture, Performing Arts, Religion & beliefs, Sociology & anthropology, Religion and Philosophy, Religion and sociology, Film and Television Studies, Screen Studies, Motion pictures and television, Religion and Society