Harvard University Press
The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy
Key Metrics
- Harvey Cox
- Harvard University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780674284982
- 9.21 X 6.14 X 0.56 inches
- 1.07 pounds
- Social Science > Sociology of Religion
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In this fascinating interpretation of contemporary culture and theology, Harvey Cox examines both the loss and reemergence of festivity and fantasy in Western civilization. He evaluates both processes from a theological perspective, defining festivity as the capacity for genuine revelry and joyous celebration and defining fantasy as the faculty for envisioning radically alternative life situations. He asserts that both are absolutely vital to contemporary human life and faith; both are a precondition for genuine social transformation. In a success and money-oriented society we need a rebirth of unapologetically unproductive festivity and expressive celebration. In an age that has quarantined parody and separated politics from imagination, we need a renaissance of social fantasy.
It has been said over and over again that affluent Western man has been gaining the whole world while losing his soul. In the face of this Mr. Cox affirms the possibility and necessity of a resurgence of hope, celebration, liberation, and experimentation. The medieval Feast of Fools, from which he has taken his title, symbolizes both the problem and the process. Centuries ago it provided an opportunity for the choirboy to play bishop and for serious townsfolk to mock the stately rituals of church and court. The eventual disappearance of the custom in the sixteenth century, unlamented if not welcomed by those in authority, illustrates the concerns of this provocative and controversial essay. Mr. Cox does not propose that a medieval practice should be revived, but he does argue for a rebirth in our own cultural idiom of what was right and good about the Feast of Fools.
It is likely that this book will become significant in wide circles. It speaks directly to such contemporary movements as the theology of hope, the rapidly disappearing radical theology, and the theology of culture. For many it will provide a new perspective on the renewal of religious life and the secular search for religious experience. For others it will function as a window into the experimental laboratories of the so-called underground church. For everyone it is a refreshing encounter with a wholly new set of perceptive observations about the problems that plague us.
Author Bio
Harvey Cox is Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard, where he began teaching in 1965, both at HDS and in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An American Baptist minister, he was the Protestant chaplain at Temple University and the director of religious activities at Oberlin College; an ecumenical fraternal worker in Berlin; and a professor at Andover Newton Theological School.
His research and teaching interests focus on the interaction of religion, culture, and politics. Among the issues he explores are urbanization, theological developments in world Christianity, Jewish-Christian relations, and current spiritual movements in the global setting (particularly Pentecostalism).
He has been a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Seminario Bautista de Mexico, the Naropa Institute, and the University of Michigan.
He is a prolific author. His most recent books are How to Read the Bible (HarperCollins, 2015) and Lamentations and the Song of Songs: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (with Stephanie Paulsell; Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).
His Secular City, published in 1965, became an international bestseller and was selected by the University of Marburg as one of the most influential books of Protestant theology in the twentieth century. His other books include The Future of Faith; When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Decisions Today; The Feast of Fools; The Seduction of the Spirit; Religion in the Secular City; The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: Liberation Theology and the Future of World Christianity; Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounters with Other Faiths; Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality; The Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century; and Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey through the Jewish Year.
Education
AB, University of Pennsylvania
BD, Yale Divinity School
PhD, Harvard University
Source: Harvard Divinity School
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