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In this remarkable book, Melissa Matthes adds a new and important dimension to the recent literature on mourning and politics. When Sorrow Comes shows how the sermon functions as a significant political response to loss, helping to shape the polity in the aftermath of tragedy and crisis. The breadth and depth of Matthes's analysis and the acuity of her insights make this an indispensable work of political theory for those concerned with understanding the past, present, and future of American democracy.--Simon Stow, author of American Mourning In this brilliant study, Matthes reveals church sermons following harrowing national events as profound forms of civic education and reflection, akin to what tragic drama was for the ancient Greeks. Sermons tell us how to mourn, which in turn discloses who we are as a political culture. Original and timely, When Sorrow Comes is at once a stunning work of political theory and a window on the enduring pains and predicaments of American political life, especially but not only those at the site of its great racial wound.--Wendy Brown, author of In the Ruins of Neoliberalism

In this remarkable book, Melissa Matthes adds a new and important dimension to the recent literature on mourning and politics. When Sorrow Comes shows how the sermon functions as a significant political response to loss, helping to shape the polity in the aftermath of tragedy and crisis. The breadth and depth of Matthes's analysis and the acuity of her insights make this an indispensable work of political theory for those concerned with understanding the past, present, and future of American democracy.--Simon Stow, author of American Mourning

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Melissa M. Matthes is Professor of Government at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and previously served as Executive Director for the Initiative on Religion and Politics at Yale University. She is author of The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics.

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