This book offers a new methodology for examining the ethico-political dimensions of religion and film which foregrounds film's social power both to shape subjectivity and to image contemporary social contradictions and analyses three specific films: Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala ; Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry ; and the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There .

Hamner seeks to discover what makes pragmatism uniquely American. She argues that the inextricably American character of pragmatism of such figures as C.S. Peirce and William James lies in its often understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God-given mission and populated by God-fearing citizens. The development of Pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American Philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes Pragmatism uniquely American. Hamner argues that the inextricably American character of the Pragmatism of such figures as C.S Peirce and William James lies in its often understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God-given mission and a populated by God-fearing citizens. By looking at European and British thinkers whom pragmatists read, Hamner examines how pragmatism's notions of self, nation, and morality were formed in reaction to the work of these thinkers. Hamner finds that the pervasive religiosity of nineteenth-century American public language underlies Peirce's and James' resistance to aspects of the philosophy and science of their non-American colleagues. This religiosity, Hamner shows, is linked strongly to the continuing rhetorical power of American Puritanism.

This book offers a new methodology for examining the ethico-political dimensions of religion and film which foregrounds film's social power both to shape subjectivity and to image contemporary social contradictions and analyses three specific films: Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala ; Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry ; and the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There .