Christian moderns : freedom and fetish in the mission encounter
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Christian moderns : freedom and fetish in the mission encounter
（The anthropology of Christianity, 1）
University of California Press, c2007
- : cloth
- : pbk
Available at 11 libraries
Note
Bibliography: p. 291-314
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Across much of the postcolonial world, Christianity has often become inseparable from ideas and practices linking the concept of modernity to that of human emancipation. To explore these links, Webb Keane undertakes a rich ethnographic study of the century-long encounter, from the colonial Dutch East Indies to post-independence Indonesia, among Calvinist missionaries, their converts, and those who resist conversion. Keane's analysis of their struggles over such things as prayers, offerings, and the value of money challenges familiar notions about agency. Through its exploration of language, materiality, and morality, this book illuminates a wide range of debates in social and cultural theory. It demonstrates the crucial place of Christianity in semiotic ideologies of modernity and sheds new light on the importance of religion in colonial and postcolonial histories.
Table of Contents
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Locating Protestantism 1. Religion's Reach 2. Beliefs, Words, and Selves 3. Religion, Culture, and the Colonies 4. Conversion's Histories Part II. Fetishisms 5. Umbu Neka's Conversion 6. Fetishism and the Word 7. Modern Sincerity 8. Materialism, Missionaries, and Modern Subjects Part III. Purifications 9. Text, Act, Objectifications 10. Money Is No Object Afterword References Index
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