This collection of 13 specially commissioned essays expands a new intellectual terrain for sociology: virtue ethics. Using a variety of religious perspectives, of Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Quakerism, with considerations of Islam and the New Age, this engaged and topical collection deals with properties of virtue in relation to the person, celibacy, hope, the apocalypse, mourning, and moral ambiguity. It also treats the concept of virtue in response to MacIntyre, Bauman, Weber, Durkheim, and Giddens. It seeks to move sociology past disabling effects of postmodernity.

This topical collection of eleven commissioned essays by well-established contributors from sociology, religious studies and theology, is one of the first treatments of the relationship between postmodernity and religion from a sociological perspective. The essays cover a diversity of interests, but treat postmodernity in terms of its implications for the self, the New Age and theology, particularly Catholicism and Judaism. Two of the essays are original appraisals of two important French writers on religion: Jean-Luc Marion and Daniele Hervieu-Leger.

Contrary to secular claims regarding the expulsion of religion, modernity does in fact produce unprecedented forms whose understanding re-casts the relationships between sociology and theology. This book explores 'irruptions' which disturb modernity from without: fragments or deposits of history that have spectral - or 'noir' - properties, whether ruins, collective memories, or the dark Gothic or the Satanic as manifested in culture. The study investigates what irrupts from these depths to unsettle our understanding of modernity so as to reveal its theological roots. A ground-breaking and extensive work, Sociological Noir explores literature, history and theology to re-cast the sociological imagination in ways that inspire reflection on new configurations in modernity. As such, it will have wide-spread appeal to sociologists and social theorists with interests in religion, theology and debates on postsecularism and culture.

A response to the depletion of the rhetoric of sociology and the spiritual capital of theology, this volume explores the remains of Christianity that still lurk as portents in a progressively de-Christianised society seeking replacements for belief. With the sociologist set in the role of an oracle seeking traces of Christianity in a discipline in which the intrusion of theological understandings has become harder to resist, it offers a narrative of belief following the direction of an exemplary portent: the finger. Through the exploration of broad trends in culture and modern history, this study, informed by interactionist thought, examines both the place of sociology in Christian theology, and the failure of theology to connect to its surrounding culture, asking how the two disciplines might meld profitably together. As such, it will appeal to social theorists and theologians, as well as sociologists with interests in religion, culture and secularisation.

Contrary to secular claims regarding the expulsion of religion, modernity does in fact produce unprecedented forms whose understanding re-casts the relationships between sociology and theology. This book explores 'irruptions' which disturb modernity from without: fragments or deposits of history that have spectral - or 'noir' - properties, whether ruins, collective memories, or the dark Gothic or the Satanic as manifested in culture. The study investigates what irrupts from these depths to unsettle our understanding of modernity so as to reveal its theological roots. A ground-breaking and extensive work, Sociological Noir explores literature, history and theology to re-cast the sociological imagination in ways that inspire reflection on new configurations in modernity. As such, it will have wide-spread appeal to sociologists and social theorists with interests in religion, theology and debates on postsecularism and culture.

The emergence of spirituality in contemporary culture in holistic forms suggests that organised religions have failed. This thesis is explored and disputed in this book in ways that mark important critical divisions. This is the first collection of essays to assess the significance of spirituality in the sociology of religion. The authors explore the relationship of spirituality to the visual, individualism, gender, identity politics, education and cultural capital. The relationship between secularisation and spirituality is examined and consideration is given to the significance of Simmel in relation to a sociology of spirituality. Problems of defining spirituality are debated with reference to its expression in the UK, the USA, France and Holland. This timely, original and well structured volume provides undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers with a scholarly appraisal of a phenomenon that can only increase in sociological significance.

The emergence of spirituality in contemporary culture in holistic forms suggests that organised religions have failed. This thesis is explored and disputed in this book in ways that mark important critical divisions. This is the first collection of essays to assess the significance of spirituality in the sociology of religion. The authors explore the relationship of spirituality to the visual, individualism, gender, identity politics, education and cultural capital. The relationship between secularisation and spirituality is examined and consideration is given to the significance of Simmel in relation to a sociology of spirituality. Problems of defining spirituality are debated with reference to its expression in the UK, the USA, France and Holland. This timely, original and well structured volume provides undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers with a scholarly appraisal of a phenomenon that can only increase in sociological significance.

This topical collection of eleven commissioned essays by well-established contributors from sociology, religious studies and theology, is one of the first treatments of the relationship between postmodernity and religion from a sociological perspective. The essays cover a diversity of interests, but treat postmodernity in terms of its implications for the self, the New Age and theology, particularly Catholicism and Judaism. Two of the essays are original appraisals of two important French writers on religion: Jean-Luc Marion and Daniele Hervieu-Leger.