In the wake of 9/11, postsecularism has emerged as a capacious critical perspective that challenges the historical narrative of Enlightenment secularization. Postsecular critique observes the persistence of religion in modernity and connects its persistence to historical religion as a longer and unbroken narrative of national, cultural, and legal discourses. Drawing on intellectual history, the anthropology of religion, and New England colonial historiography, this essay argues that our contemporary understanding of the United States is deepened by rereading the nation’s puritan past from a postsecular perspective. The essay considers the travails of Roger Williams, the Antinomian Controversy, and the puritan treatment of the early Quakers as important contributions to American perspectives on the separation of church and state, the role of spirituality in the secular, and the legal and procedural application of “tolerance.”

Gender in American puritanism was shaped by both figurative language used in spiritual discourse and opportunities for religious activity afforded to women by puritan theology and congregational church organization. This chapter examines three broad areas in which gender was shaped and debated within American puritanism. The first is spiritual practices, especially as reflected in puritan conversion narratives. Here we see some of the most specifically puritan expressions of gender, which demonstrate a more mobile relationship between femininity and masculinity than stereotypes might suggest. Conversion narratives also constitute an important location for women’s public discourse particular to New England puritanism. The second is trials, the location of some of the best-known dramas of gender conflict that continue to incite and entertain modern audiences. In looking at trials, we get a better sense of how civil and religious law come together in the early New England colonies. We also get a glimpse into how class, race, and ethnicity inflect characterizations of gender. And despite the disciplinary framework, we also see another form of female agency and gender debate. Finally, Anne Bradstreet’s treatment of gendered embodiment provides an example of a woman poet’s participation in debates about gender.

Studying puritan literature requires a sense of the erratic paths that seventeenth-century New England writing take in the world as well as the material contexts that give rise to more or less stable texts gathered up in anthologies and modern editions. The aim of this chapter is to elaborate the ways that the logic of manuscript culture informs puritan literary culture across material genres, using the poet Anne Bradstreet’s unusual case to elucidate typical means of manuscript practice, production, and circulation. A bit of knowledge of manuscript culture, its generic and practical conventions, and its role in the larger world of “colonial mediascapes” can go a long way in enabling new insights and more nuanced readings of puritan texts derived from various original sources.