Word: bellah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Although his ideology has changed since his days as an undergraduate member of the Communist Party, Robert N. Bellah '48, a sociologist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, has spent his entire life at the cutting edge of the academy...
...been tremendously influential.... He's sparked new ideas wherever he's gone," says Ann Swidler '66, a sociologist who co-wrote Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life and The Good Society with Bellah...
Swidler credits Bellah with developing ideas "which have become part of the woodwork" of academia, such as the concept of civil religion, a term he coined in an influential 1966 paper, "Civil Religion in America...
...final question is this: Is the simple life just a passing fancy, a stylish flashback of the 1960s? Not so, say people who have studied both eras. Contends Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah: "It's no longer messianic, the way it was in the '60s, but relatively pragmatic. That may give the present mood a greater staying power." That's good, because the American generation now reaching middle age has a lot of promises to keep -- not to mention mortgages to carry, tuition to pay and lawns to mow. No wonder they want to keep it simple...