A Joyfully Serious Man

The Life of Robert Bellah

Matteo Bortolini

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780691278315
  9780691204406
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691204390
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The brilliant but turbulent life of a public intellectual who transformed the social sciences

Robert Bellah (1927–2013) was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. Trained as a sociologist, he crossed disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of a greater comprehension of religion as both a cultural phenomenon and a way to fathom the depths of the human condition. A Joyfully Serious Man is the definitive biography of this towering figure in modern intellectual life, and a revelatory portrait of a man who led an adventurous yet turbulent life.

Drawing on Bellah's personal papers as well as in-depth interviews with those who knew him, Matteo Bortolini tells the story of an extraordinary scholarly career and an eventful and tempestuous life. He describes Bellah's exile from the United States during the hysteria of the McCarthy years, his crushing personal tragedies, and his experiments with sexuality. Bellah understood religion as a mysterious human institution that brings together the scattered pieces of individual and collective experiences. Bortolini shows how Bellah championed intellectual openness and innovation through his relentless opposition to any notion of secularization as a decline of religion and his ideas about the enduring tensions between individualism and community in American society.

Based on nearly two decades of research, A Joyfully Serious Man is a revelatory chronicle of a leading public intellectual who was both a transformative thinker and a restless, passionate seeker.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface: Writing Bob Bellah
• Acknowledgments
• 1. From Father to Son: Oklahoma to California, 1916–1944
• 2. A Writer and a Teacher: United States East Coast, 1945–1950
• 3. Enter Talcott Parsons: Cambridge, MA, 1950–1953
• 4. Expectations versus Reality: From Cambridge to Montreal, and Back, 1954–1957
• 5. Becoming an American: From Cambridge to Tokyo, and Back, 1957–1961
• 6. Time to Leave: Cambridge, 1961–1967
• 7. “Stand Back and See It All”: Berkeley, 1967–1968
• 8. “To Put It Bluntly, Religion Is True”: Rome and Cambridge, 1968–1969
• 9. Beyond Borders: Berkeley, 1969–1971
• 10. Twilight of the God: From Berkeley to Princeton, and Back, 1970–1973
• 11. Breaking Covenants: Berkeley, 1973–1976
• 12. Ashes Alone: United States of America, 1969–1976
• 13. “We Create Our Own Planets on the Table”: Berkeley, 1976–1978
• 14. Articulating the Real: Berkeley, 1978–1979
• 15. On the Edge of the Eighties: Berkeley, 1979–1983
• 16. The Sociologist’s Revenge: United States of America, 1978–1985
• 17. Hitting the Big Time: United States of America, 1985–1991
• 18. Looking for the Good Society: United States of America, 1991–1992
• 19. Time to Leave Again: United States of America, 1993–2000
• 20. Between Religion and Evolution: North America, 1955–2004
• 21. “This Big House on the Hill”: Berkeley, 2005–2010
• 22. Nothing Is Ever Lost: From Berkeley to the World, 2011–2013
• Epilogue: The Joy of a Serious Life
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index