Books in the Morality, Society and Culture series

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.

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