Chicago was a tumultuous and exciting city in 1889. Immigration, industrialization, urbanization, and politics created a vortex of social change. This lively chaos called out for both celebration and reform, and two women, Ellen Gates Starr and Jane Addams, responded to this challenge by founding the social settlement Hull House. Although Addams is one of the most famous women in American history and a major figure in sociology, Starr remains virtually unknown. On Art, Labor, and Religion is the first anthology of Starr's writings and biography and makes evident her contributions to national and international sociological thought and practice.

Eileen Boris explores the ways in which the Arts and Crafts Movement was related to the trends of its time. She both describes the leading participants and puts the movement into a new and larger context that involves labor as well as art.

A fresh approach to the connection between art and religion that seeks to redefine their relationship in the contemporary age The relationship between art and religion has been long, complex, and often conflicted, and it has given rise to many of the greatest works in the history of art. Artists today continue to reflect seriously upon religious traditions, themes, and institutions, suggesting a new approach to spirituality that is more considered than confrontational. Art & Religion in the 21st Century is the first in-depth study to survey an international roster of artists who use their work to explore religion’s cultural, social, political, and psychological impact on today’s world. An introduction outlines the debates and controversies that the art/religion connection has precipitated throughout history. Each of the book’s ten chapters introduces a theme—ideas of the Creation, the figure of Jesus, the sublime, wonder, diaspora and exile, religious and political conflict, ritual practice, mourning and monumentalizing, and spiritual “dwelling” in the body and in space—followed by a selection of works of art that illustrates that theme. Artists discussed include Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Makoto Fujimura, David LaChapelle, Annette Messager, Jason Rhoades, Andres Serrano, and Zeng Fanzhi.

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"Starr's interdisciplinary writings (touching on social work, religion, education, US history, women's studies, sociology, and urban studies) add to the growing anthology of women's history and the lived experiences of the common woman." --Choice Chicago was a tumultuous and exciting city in 1889. Immigration, industrialization, urbanization, and politics created a vortex of social change. This lively chaos called out for both celebration and reform, and two women, Ellen Gates Starr and Jane Addams, responded to this challenge by founding the social settlement Hull House. Although Addams is one of the most famous women in American history and a major figure in sociology, Starr remains virtually unknown. On Art, Labor, and Religion is the first anthology of Starr's writings and biography and makes evident her contributions to national and international sociological thought and practice. In addition to co-founding Hull House, Starr actively brought the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain to Chicago through extensive and intensive relations with this group of artisans, theorists, socialists, and proto-sociologists, founding a number of important societies based on their ideals and practices. Her writings on art, like those of William Morris and John Ruskin, stress the need for a unitary life and meaningful work that is aesthetically expressive and in harmony with nature and the community. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, she gained national fame as a visible socialist and advocate for women's labor movements whose activism helped secure greater safety for many strikers. An adherent of Fabian socialism, Starr's writings on labor unrest reflect her turning away from aestheticism toward more active political engagement. Her firm commitment to feminism, expressed between 1892 and 1920, reveal a pragmatic belief in human improvement, more inclusive democracy, and our capacity to end major social problems. On converting to Catholicism in 1920, she left Hull House to follow a more private spiritual journey, eventually entering the Benedictine religious order where she remained until her death in 1940. Her late religious and mystical writings renounce her former activism and the "Protestant ethic" in favor of an otherworldly dedication and an ordered life of prayer and devotion to Christ. Her essays make a distinct contribution to our knowledge about early sociology and the social settlement movement. This volume restores a significant figure to her rightful place in American social history. Mary Jo Deegan is professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is the author of Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School and the editor of George Herbert Mead's Essays in Social Psychology, both available from Transaction. Ana-Maria Wahl is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She specializes in labor studies and comparative sociology with an emphasis on Mexico.

To the question of &lquo;what is art?&rquo;, it is often simply responded that art is whatever is produced by the artist. For John Molyneux, this clearly circular answer is deeply unsatisfying. In a tour de force spanning renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic to contemporary leading figures, The Dialectics of Art instead approaches its subject matter as a distinct field of creative human labour that emerges alongside and in opposition to the alienation and commodification brought about by capitalism. The pieces and individuals Molyneux examines — from Michelangelo’s Slaves to Rembrandts Jewish Bride to the vast drip paintings of Jackson Pollock – are presented as embodying the social contradictions of their times, giving art an inherently political relevance. In its relationship of creative and dialectical tension to prevailing social relationships and norms, such art points beyond the existing order of things, hinting at a potential future society not based on alienated labour in which creative production becomes the property and practice of all.

Meeting House Essays in a series of papers reflecting on the mystery, beauty and practicalities of the place of worship. This popular series was begun in 1991, and each resource focuses on a particular aspect of space, design or materials and how they relate to the liturgy.

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) is a founding figure in the field of sociology. His stature is comparable to that of his contemporaries Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Mead's contribution was a profound and unique American theory that analyzed society and the individual as social objects. As Mead saw it, both society and the individual emerged from cooperative, democratic processes linking the self, the other, and the community. Mary Jo Deegan, a leading scholar of Mead's work, traces the evolution of his thought , its continuity and change. She is particularly interested in the most controversial period of Mead's work, in which he addressed topics of violence and the nation state. Mead's theory of war, peace, and society emerged out of the historical events of his time, particularly World War I. During this period he went from being a pacifist, along with his contemporaries John Dewey and Jane Addams, to being a strong advocate for war. From 1917-1918 Mead became a leader in voicing the need for war based on his theory of self and society. After the war, he became disillusioned with President Woodrow Wilson, with Americans' failure to support mechanisms for international arbitration, and with the political reasons for American participation in World War I. He returned to a more pacifist and co-operative model of behavior during the 1920s, when he became less political, more abstract, and more withdrawn from public debate. The book includes Deegan's interpretation of Mead's early social thought, his friendship and family networks, the historical context of America at war, and the importance of analysis of violence and the state from Mead's perspective. She also provides illustrative selections from Mead's work, much of which was previously unpublished.

Vols. 13-62 include abridged annual reports and proceedings of the annual meetings of the American Missionary Association, 1869-1908; v. 38-62 include abridged annual reports of the Society's Executive committee, 1883/84-1907/1908.

In Interplay of Things Anthony B. Pinn theorizes religion as a technology for interrogating human experiences and the boundaries between people and other things. Rather than considering religion in terms of institutions, doctrines, and creeds, Pinn shows how religion exposes the openness and porousness of all things and how they are always involved in processes of exchange and interplay. Pinn examines work by Nella Larsen and Richard Wright that illustrates an openness between things, and he traces how pop art and readymades point to the multidirectional nature of influence. He also shows how Ron Athey's and Clifford Owens's performance art draws out inherent interconnectedness to various cultural codes in ways that reveal the symbiotic relationship between art and religion as a technology. Theorizing that antiblack racism and gender- and class-based hostility constitute efforts to close off the porous nature of certain bodies, Pinn shows how many artists have rebelled against these attempts to counter openness. His analyses offer a means by which to understand the porous, unbounded, and open nature of humans and things.