{"product_id":"the-last-supper-art-faith-sex-and-controversy-in-the-1980s","title":"The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNamed a Best Book of the Year by the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Named an Essential Read by \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis enthralling group portrait brings to life a moment when popular culture became the site of religious strife--strife that set the stage for some of the most salient political and cultural clashes of our day. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCirca 1980, tradition and authority are in the ascendant, both in Catholicism (via Pope John Paul II) and in American civic life (through the Moral Majority and the so-called televangelists). But the public is deeply divided on issues of body and soul, devotion and desire. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEnter the figures Paul Elie calls \"crypto-religious.\" Here is Leonard Cohen writing \"Hallelujah\" on his knees in a Times Square hotel room; Andy Warhol adapting Leonardo's\u003ci\u003e The Last Supper\u003c\/i\u003e in response to the AIDS pandemic; Prince making the cross and altar into \"signs o' the times.\" Through Toni Morrison, spirits speak from the grave; Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen deepen the tent-revival intensity of their work; Wim Wenders offers an angel's-eye view of Berlin; U2, the Neville Brothers, and Sinéad O'Connor reckon with their Christian roots in music of mystic yearning. And Martin Scorsese overcomes fundamentalist ire to make \u003ci\u003eThe Last Temptation of Christ\u003c\/i\u003e--a struggle that anticipates Salman Rushdie's struggle with Islam in \u003ci\u003eThe Satanic\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eVerses\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn Elie's acclaimed first book, \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own\u003c\/i\u003e, Catholic writers ventured out into the wilds of postwar America; in this book, creative figures who were raised religious go to the margins of conventional belief, calling forth controversy. Episodes such as the boycott sparked by Madonna's \"Like a Prayer\" video and the tearing-up of Andres Serrano's \u003ci\u003ePiss Christ\u003c\/i\u003e in Congress are early skirmishes in the culture wars--but here the creators (not the politicians) are the protagonists, and the work they make speaks to conflicts that remain unsettled. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Last Supper\u003c\/i\u003e explores the bold and unexpected forms an encounter with belief can take. It traces the beginnings of our postsecular age, in which religion is at once surging and in decline. Through a propulsive narrative, it reveals the crypto-religious imagination as complex, credible, daring, and vividly recognizable.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0374272921\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780374272920\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Elie, Paul\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover (May 2025)","offer_id":46080900235461,"sku":"9780374272920","price":31.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780374272920.jpg?v=1776041545","url":"https:\/\/www.inveni.store\/products\/the-last-supper-art-faith-sex-and-controversy-in-the-1980s","provider":"Inveni","version":"1.0","type":"link"}