Matteo Bortolini – författare

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

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

This book provides a comprehensive profile of the development of sociology in Italy from the post-war period to the present day. The first English-language account of the history of Italian sociology, it focuses on the process of institutionalization of the discipline within the Italian university system and its changing relationships with extra-academic actors and institutions: political parties, unions, the Catholic Church, political and social movements, as well as local and national governments. Arranged chronologically across eight chapters, it presents all major steps in the development of the discipline in a theoretically-informed but accessible way. The authors explore the pioneering phase of the 1950s to the establishment of the first academic chairs in the 1960s, from the student revolts of 1968 to the creation of the first sociological association in the 1980s and up to the present day. It will appeal to social science and history scholars and students, as well as readers interested in the history of Contemporary Italy.