This essay examines how James’s distinction between “personal” and “institutional” religion in The Varieties of Religious Experience informs modernist literature. Specifically, it points to the inescapably social dimensions of “personal” forms of religious experience, demonstrating how modernists such as E.J. Pratt –once Canada’s leading poet – extended James’s notion of personal religion in relation to his pragmatic philosophy. I place James in conversation with modernists such as Pratt to challenge scholars to consider anew not only the nature of James’s literary influence, but also the many forms of religious expression that shaped the cultural landscape of the twentieth century.

1. digital humanities
2. open access
3. open scholarship
4. open social scholarship
5. scholarly communication

Original publication: “It’s Not Personal: Modernist Remediations of William James’s ‘Personal Religion.’” Further Directions in William James and Literary Studies. Ed. Todd Barosky and Justin Rogers-Cooper. Spec. issue of William James Studies 13.2 (2017): 140-66.