Textuality, Culture and Scripture: A Study in Interrelations

"Textuality, Culture, and Scripture", a study of the necessary and close relations between the three concepts, describes the prominent role of texts and textuality in Western modernity and the exchange of textual for material understandings of culture that becomes apparent in the middle of the twentieth century. Taking its starting point in the turn or return in cultural studies to textuality, the argument addresses the necessary role of texts and textuality in cultural, group, and personal identities. Central to the argument is the thesis that “scripture,” rather than an occasional or optional textual category, should be seen as playing a necessary role in an adequate textual theory.

Wesley A. Kort taught in the Department of Religion at Princeton University before he joined the faculty of the Department of Religion and the Graduate Program of Religion at Duke University where he served until becoming professor emeritus of religion in 2014. He is the author of 11 books and many scholarly articles in books and journals that relate religious, literary, and cultural studies to one another.