Böcker i Morality, Society and Culture-serien

A survey of the trajectory of research in literature, history, sociology, and economics over the past century, as well as the values, priorities and agendas of the modern research university, this book argues that in spite of its wealth, power and success, the modern university, has lost its way, resulting in a depreciation of its value.

This book takes the form of intellectual histories of eight major representative figures of the twentieth century, who inherited and responded to the spiritual problematic left by Nietzsche.

This volume critically engages with the work of the acclaimed sociologist John Carroll and makes the argument for a metaphysical sociology.

This book argues for the continued significance of religious inheritance as a key aspect of European modernity, contending that public intellectuals need to be understood, in at least some respects, as moral critics of their society and that as such, a crucial dimension of their role is shaped by the particular patterns of religious inheritance that they possess whether directly as individuals, or, via the national society of which they consider themselves members and the particular history of its state formation. With an exploration of both their hidden and openly religious dimensions, The Public Intellectual as Moral Critic reveals the enduring and perhaps paradoxical influence of the great 19th century secular religions in contemporary social criticism by way of a case study of the work of Noam Chomsky, whose rationalism is contrasted with the more openly religious and poetic vision of Peter Dale Scott. Identifying the problematic nature of the modern social environment for radical critique and pointing, through the work of Marshall McLuhan and Regis Debray, to the continuing need for critical discourse, the author also discusses the importance of the thought of philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor in opening up space for genuine critique of the present in the face of the threats posed to it by modern mass media and the powerful forces of market-based institutions. A work of conceptual and historical sociology, including comparative and genealogical analyses, this volume will appeal to sociologists, social theorists and philosophers with interests in ethics, the sociology of religion and public intellectuals.

Contrary to secular claims regarding the expulsion of religion, modernity does in fact produce forms whose understanding re-casts the relationships between sociology and theology. This book explores `irruptions¿ which disturb modernity: fragments of history that have spectral ¿ `noir¿ ¿ properties, whether ruins, collective memories, dark Gothic or the Satanic as manifested in culture. The study investigates what irrupts from these depths to unsettle our understanding of modernity to reveal its theological roots. A ground-breaking work, Sociological Noir explores literature, history and theology to re-cast the sociological imagination in ways that inspire new configurations in modernity.

This volume critically engages with the work of the acclaimed sociologist John Carroll and makes the argument for a metaphysical sociology. Carroll has proposed that a metaphysical sociology should focus on the questions of fundamental existence that confront all humans ¿ questions of meaning, which, in the modern West, have become increasingly difficult to answer. Through consideration of a range of topics including, film, psychoanalysis, terrorism and everyday life, Metaphysical Sociology takes up the fundamental question of metaphysical sociology ¿ that of people¿s `ontological qualities¿ or inner resources and the means by which they might cultivate them in pursuit of meaning.

Contrary to secular claims regarding the expulsion of religion, modernity does in fact produce forms whose understanding re-casts the relationships between sociology and theology. This book explores `irruptions¿ which disturb modernity: fragments of history that have spectral ¿ `noir¿ ¿ properties, whether ruins, collective memories, dark Gothic or the Satanic as manifested in culture. The study investigates what irrupts from these depths to unsettle our understanding of modernity to reveal its theological roots. A ground-breaking work, Sociological Noir explores literature, history and theology to re-cast the sociological imagination in ways that inspire new configurations in modernity.