In Search of a Schema in a Joyfully Serious Life: Robert Bellah, the Cold War, Psychoanalysis, and Intimate Experimentations

Abstract

A rejoinder to comments by Amy Borovoy, Chad Alan Goldberg, Arvind Rajagopal, and Joan W. Scott on my book, A Joyfully Serious Man. I begin with a brief narrative of how I came to write the book and how I worked on it with the help of many different people. I then move to the place of psychoanalysis in the book, my analysis of Bellah’s early positioning in Cold War social science, and a few questions regarding American culture, religion, and politics. The article ends with a few remarks on my current research on the life and work of Clifford Geertz.