The Post-Secular in Question: Religion in Contemporary Society

Philip Gorski, David Kyuman Kim, John Torpey, Jonathan VanAntwerpen

NYU Press, Mar 12, 2012 - Social Science - 375 pages

The Post-Secular in Question considers whether there has in fact been a religious resurgence of global dimensions in recent decades. This collection of original essays by leading academics represents an interdisciplinary intervention in the continuing and ever-transforming discussion of the role of religion and secularism in today’s world. Foregrounding the most urgent and compelling questions raised by the place of religion in the social sciences, past and present, The Post-Secular in Question restores religion to a more central place in social scientific thinking about the world, helping to move scholarship “beyond unbelief.”

Contributors: Courtney Bender, Craig Calhoun, Michele Dillon, Philip S. Gorski, Richard Madsen, Kathleen Mahoney, Tomoko Masuzawa, Eduardo Mendieta, John Schmalzbauer, James K. A. Smith, John Torpey, Bryan S. Turner, Hent de Vries.

Contents

• 1 The PostSecular in Question: 1
• 2 What Is Religion? Categorical Reconfigurations in a Global Horizon: 23
• 3 Things in Their Entanglements: 43
• Durkheimian Sociology as Virtue Ethics: 77
• The Obama Phenomenon: 105
• Consumerism and the Democratization of Religion: 135
• 7 Secular Liturgies and the Prospects for a PostSecular Sociology of Religion: 159
• 8 Secular by Default? Religion and the University before the PostSecular Age: 185
• 9 Religion and Knowledge in the PostSecular Academy: 215
• A Sociological Critique: 249
• 11 Religion and Secularization in the United States and Western Europe: 279
• Foucault and Habermas on PostMetaphysical Religion: 307
• 13 Time World and Secularism: 335
• About the Contributors: 365
• Index: 369

About the author

Philip S. Gorski is Professor of Sociology at Yale University and author of The Protestant Ethic Revisited.

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John Torpey is Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and author of Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics.

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Bibliographic information

• Title: The Post-Secular in Question: Religion in Contemporary Society; Volume 7 of Social Science Research Council
• Editors: Philip Gorski, David Kyuman Kim, John Torpey, Jonathan VanAntwerpen
• Publisher: NYU Press, 2012
• ISBN: 0814738745, 9780814738740
• Length: 375 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Science / Sociology of Religion