The English Modernist Novel as Political Theology

Challenging the Nation

Charles Andrews (Whitworth University, USA)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
21 August 2025

Series: New Directions in Religion and Literature

A 2024 CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE

novels by Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, and Sylvia Townsend Warner

as political theology – works that imagine a resistance to the fusion of Christianity and patriotism which fuelled and supported the First World War – this book shows how we can gain valuable insights from their works for anti-militarist, anti-statist, and anti-nationalist efforts today.

While none of the four novelists in this study were committed Christians during the 1920s, Andrews explores how their fiction written in the wake of the First World War operates theologically when it challenges English civil religion – the rituals of the nation that elevate the state to a form of divinity. Bringing these novels into a dialogue with recent political theologies by theorists and theologians including Giorgio Agamben, William Cavanaugh, Simon Critchley, Michel Foucault, Stanley Hauerwas and Jürgen Moltmann, this book shows the myriad ways that we can learn from the authors’ theopolitical imaginations.

Andrews demonstrates the many ways that these novelists issue a challenge to the problems with civil religion and the sacralized nation state and, in so doing, offer alternative visions to coordinate our inner lives with our public and collective actions.

By: Charles Andrews (Whitworth University USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 340g
ISBN: 9781350362079
ISBN 10: 1350362077
Series: New Directions in Religion and Literature
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 21 August 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Charles Andrews is Professor of English at Whitworth University, USA.

Reviews for The English Modernist Novel as Political Theology: Challenging the Nation

""Charles Andrews's fascinating account of modernist fiction and the 'theopolitical imagination' offers a distinctively new and exciting approach to the cultural and literary history of modernism. Through an introduction and four chapters dedicated to four non-religious novelists, it maps a set of complex and fascinating responses to the role of Christianity in the formation and consolidation of English nationhood. Superbly argued and impressively attuned to the nuances of literary and political discourse, the book is a vital addition to the literature on modernism and religion and the first to recognise the modernist novel as a key site of resistance to the Christian nation-state."" --Suzanne Hobson, Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature, Queen Mary University of London, UK