{"id":{"repo_id":"mississippi","oai_identifier":"oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2393"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mississippi/oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2393","repository":{"repo_id":"mississippi","name":"University of Mississippi","base_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Book of Empire: The Political Bible of U.S. Literary Modernism","abstract":"“Book of Empire” reveals that contrary to what is often suggested by scholars, modernism is not a moment of secularization and declining faith and that the Bible is actually a resource for mounting a radical critique of empire, nation-building, and racial oppression that defies conservative notions supporting those undertakings. For Willa Cather, William Faulkner, and Zora Neale Hurston, the Bible is a source of moral authority they use to challenge the imperialist, colonialist, and nativist projects of the twentieth-century U.S. In rebranding the Bible as politically radical, these writers are not denying the authority of the Bible, but are re-appropriating it for their socially dynamic purposes, suggesting that conservatives are not reading the Bible correctly. If they were, they would find critique of empire, nationalism, and racial oppression—elements of a progressive agenda in a text too often enlisted to defend the status quo.","abstract_html":"“Book of Empire” reveals that contrary to what is often suggested by scholars, modernism is not a moment of secularization and declining faith and that the Bible is actually a resource for mounting a radical critique of empire, nation-building, and racial oppression that defies conservative notions supporting those undertakings. For Willa Cather, William Faulkner, and Zora Neale Hurston, the Bible is a source of moral authority they use to challenge the imperialist, colonialist, and nativist projects of the twentieth-century U.S. In rebranding the Bible as politically radical, these writers are not denying the authority of the Bible, but are re-appropriating it for their socially dynamic purposes, suggesting that conservatives are not reading the Bible correctly. If they were, they would find critique of empire, nationalism, and racial oppression—elements of a progressive agenda in a text too often enlisted to defend the status quo.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hudek, Barry"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D. in English","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Jay D. Watson","Jarod H. Roll","Jaime L. 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