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.
Kieran Flanagan is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. He is the author of Sociology in Theology: Reflexivity and Belief (2007); Seen and Unseen: Visual Culture, Sociology and Theology (2004); The Enchantment of Sociology: A Study of Theology and Culture (1996); and Sociology and Liturgy: Re-presentations of the Holy (1991), and co-editor with Peter C. Jupp of A Sociology of Spirituality (2007); Virtue Ethics and Sociology: Issues of Modernity and Religion (2001); and Postmodernity, Sociology and Religion (1996).