Acknowledgments
Identity and the Rites of Symbolic Action
Kenneth Burke's Natural Pieties of Identity
Catharsis and Tragedy: Kenneth Burke's Rhetoric of Sacrifice
The Spiritual Utility of Comedy
Ralph Ellison and the Vernacular Pieties of American Identity
Ellison's Tragic Vision of Sacrifice
The Blues of American Identity: Comic Transcendence in Ellison
Both a Part of and Apart From: The Spirit and Ethics of a Religious Pragmatism
Notes
Bibliography
Index.