"How do we stand in relation to everything that comes down to us from the past? Is the very idea of tradition still useful in the wake of historical ruptures such as the Holocaust, changes in the canon, and the end of colonialism? Suspicion of tradition as culturally narrow and oppressive is a persistent theme of modernity and has increased with the resurgence of religious traditionalism around the globe. At the same time, various groups demanding recognition for their distinctive cultural identity have reclaimed their traditions." "The essays in this volume offer analyses of religious, literary, and cultural traditions and both responses and resistance to them including works by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Josiah Rayes, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jacques Derrida, Charlotte Bronte, Soren Kierkegaard, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edith Wharton, Chinua Achebe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Kuhn, Donald Davidson, antebellum, African-American women preachers, and Christian and Jewish thinkers in the wake of the Holocaust, among others."--Jacket.