Spring

Spring 62 - 1997

American Soul

147 pages, ISBN 1-882670-11-6 / 978-1-882670-11-6, Spring Journal

Articles by James Hillman, Gary Hart, C. L. Sebrell and Edward Tick

Appropriately American Soul is about as Hillmanic a subject as you can get. Soul is a word that entered American in a new way around 1975, thanks largely to the influence of Hillman’s ground breaking book, Re-visioning Psychology (and before that in Suicide and the Soul). After Re-visioning, soul was no longer to be merely the property of religious doctrine, or of jazz and black culture, or a certain kind of food, but a special kind of psychological identity as well, with Saturnian and Hermetic roots in the Italian renaissance.

Since there are still some cynical types out there who think "American Soul" is the perfect oxymoron, we offer in this issue at least a start in confusing them. From Christopher Columbus himself (speaking of the Italian Renaissance) to the stress syndromes of the Vietnam War, from the archetypal sinking of the Titanic to a dinner with Anis Nin, this issue "re-visions" the many manifestations of soul in American life. We are particularly honored that Gary Hart, the distinguished former United States Senator from Colorado and Oxford Fellow, contributes a piece to the discussion.