Not Another Blog!

Oh yes. Another one. Though not intended to replace its sibloglings (The Mazeppist and Ghaffar Khan Society--see below), An American Athenaeum will serve as a repository of material that reflects (in a more academic vein than my other blogs) my three inter-related intellectual projects:

(1) “Islam in the American Grain,” a study of the phenomenon of Romantic Orientalism in American literature and intellectual life since the 18th century; included in this research is my investigation into Norman O. Brown’s late-life turn to Islamic studies.

(2) “The Romantic Roots of Religious Studies,” a re-description of the modern study of religion as inquiry into the religious imagination and, hence, a specific moment in the development of a more general theory of human creativity.

(3) Further development of Modern Qur’anic Hermeneutics, an approach to Qur’anic study which emerged from the early 20th century Egyptian Literary Renaissance (itself a product of Egyptian engagement with British and French Romanticism). I continue to apply the techniques of recent allusion theory and other literary critical and rhetorical tools to unpack Qur’anic meanings.

Some of this material has found its way (and will no doubt continue to do so) into the posts of the Ghaffar Khan Society and The Mazeppist with the provocativeness (even contentiousness) of the mode of Romantic irony that I have termed "Pantagruelism."

I cannot promise that I will not wear my lacerated Swiftian heart on my blogging sleeve when posting to An American Athenaeum, but I shall attempt to tone down the indignation a bit in the interests of minimizing distractions. Commentary upon subjects that beg for satire will continue to be posted at this blog's sibloglings--and, yes, as far as I know, I have this day coined that term.