Weber And The Persistence Of Religion: Social Theory, Capitalism And The Sublime (routledge Advances In Sociology)

921.qxd 9/25/2006 1:10 PM Page 1 Batch number: 1 CIRCULATED Date: SEEN BY DESK EDITOR: REVISE NEEDED Initial: Date: APPROVED FOR PRESS BY DESK EDITOR Initial: Date: Back board: ❑ ISBN ❑ Barcode LEARNING TO TEACH IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL Edited by Susan Capel, Marilyn Leaskand Tony Turner CHECKLIST (must be completed before press) (Please cross through any items that are not applicable) Front board: Spine: ❑ Title ❑ Title ❑ Subtitle ❑ Subtitle ❑ Author/edited by ❑ Author/edited by ❑ Series title ❑ Extra logo if required ❑ Extra logo if required General: ❑ Book size ❑ Type fit on spine Weber and the Persistence of Religion Social Theory, Capitalism and the Sublime Joseph W. H. Lough ISBN 978-0-415-36392-1 ,!7IA4B Routledge Advances in Sociology www.routledge.com ï an informa business PC4 Royal Demy B-format Spine back edge Weber and the Persistence of Religion At perhaps no other time in history have religion and spirituality played such important social and political roles in our world; and, yet, most people still feel that contemporary society is predominantly secular and that our world is largely disenchanted. Taking Max Weber’s interpretations of capitalism and religion as its point of departure, Weber and the Persistence of Religion re-examines a wide range of classical and contemporary texts, from Immanuel Kant to Jean Baudrillard, to help explain the peculiar character of religion and spirituality in mature capitalist societies. Since the mid-19th century, most social scientists have noted an irreversible trend in mature capitalist societies towards ever greater secularization and disenchantment. They have been much slower to pick up on the dramatic transformation in spirituality and religion since the emergence of capitalism in the late 14th century. This book shows how the peculiar disembodied character of contemporary spirituality and religion, along with the disenchanted character of public life, may be formally related to the increasingly disembodied, immaterial character of value in capitalist societies. Joseph W.H. Lough explores how the increasingly antagonistic relationship between contemporary religion and its material forms of appearance displays an unmistakable likeness to what Immanuel Kant described as the sublime and Karl Marx described as the sublime value form of the commodity. More disturbingly, Weber and the Persistence of Religion also shows how the growing antagonism between contemporary spiritual subjectivity and practice and its material forms of appearance may explain the unremitting escalation in officially sanctioned mass death since the 14th century. If mass death is a defining feature of contemporary religion, it is vital that we understand why and how it has become so. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Social Theory, History, the Sociology of Religion and Philosophy. Joseph W.H. Lough is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches in the social sciences on the San Francisco and Oakland campuses of California College of the Arts, as well as at the DeAnza College, Cupertino, California. Routledge Advances in Sociology Th