Christopher S. Grenda 
Profane [EPUB ebook] 
Sacrilegious Expression in a Multicultural Age

Humans have been uttering profane words and incurring the consequences for millennia. But contemporary events—from the violence in 2006 that followed Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed to the 2012 furor over the
Innocence of Muslims video—indicate that controversy concerning blasphemy has reemerged in explosive transnational form. In an age when electronic media transmit offense as rapidly as profane images and texts can be produced, blasphemy is bracingly relevant again.


In this volume, a distinguished cast of international scholars examines the profound difficulties blasphemy raises for modern societies. Contributors examine how the sacred is formed and maintained, how sacrilegious expression is conceived and regulated, and how the resulting conflicts resist easy adjudication. Their studies range across art, history, politics, law, literature, and theology. Because of the global nature of the problem, the volume’s approach is comparative, examining blasphemy across cultural and geopolitical boundaries.

Daftar Isi

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Martin E. Marty

Introduction: On the Modern Confluence of Blasphemy, Free Expression, and Hate Speech

Christopher S. Grenda, Chris Beneke, and David Nash


PART ONE. CREATING SPACE FOR SACRILEGIOUS EXPRESSION

1. Thick-Skinned Tolerance: Satire, the Sacred, and the Rise of the Modern 

Christopher S. Grenda

2. The Productive Obscene: Philip Roth and the Profanity Loop 

Jacques Berlinerblau

3. Defaced: The Art of Blaspheming Texts and Images in the West 

David Lawton


PART TWO. SACRILEGE AND DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT

4. Blasphemy and Free Thought in Jacksonian America: The Case of Abner Kneeland 

Paul Finkelman

5. Secular Blasphemies: Symbolic Offense in Modern Democracy 

Robert A. Yelle


PART THREE. CIVILITY, THE SACRED, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

6. Muslim Political Theology: Defamation, Apostasy, and Anathema 

Ebrahim Moosa

7. Protesting Sacrilege: Blasphemy and Violence in Muslim-Majority States 

Ron E. Hassner

8. The Indonesian Blasphemy Act: A Legal and Social Analysis 

Asma T. Uddin

9. Profound Offense and Religion in Secular Democracies: An Australian Perspective 

Elizabeth Burns Coleman

10. Blasphemy versus Incitement: An International Law Perspective 

Jeroen Temperman


Afterword: Blasphemy beyond Modernism 

David Nash

List of Contributors 

Index

Tentang Penulis

Christopher S. Grenda is Professor of History at Bronx Community College, City University of New York. Chris Beneke is Associate Professor of History at Bentley University.David Nash is Reader in History at Oxford Brookes University and Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry, Amherst, New York.Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School.