Lorne L. Dawson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195177299
- eISBN:
- 9780199785537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177299.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
While the number of people involved in new religious movements (NRMs) is small, the attention they have received in the popular media and academic discourse suggest a greater significance. In the ...
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While the number of people involved in new religious movements (NRMs) is small, the attention they have received in the popular media and academic discourse suggest a greater significance. In the popular media, NRMs are most often seen as a social problem. In academic studies, they are more often associated with processes of social change and the critique of modernity. In the literature, there are four interpretive frameworks for understanding the significance of NRMs when viewed as a response to the social conditions of modernity. The first sees them as part of the protest against modernity. The second sees them as forums for modern social experimentation. The third identifies them with the re-enchantment of the modern world. The fourth suggests they are born of attempts to adapt to the social and psychological tensions created by a dialectic of trust and risk in late modern societies.Less
While the number of people involved in new religious movements (NRMs) is small, the attention they have received in the popular media and academic discourse suggest a greater significance. In the popular media, NRMs are most often seen as a social problem. In academic studies, they are more often associated with processes of social change and the critique of modernity. In the literature, there are four interpretive frameworks for understanding the significance of NRMs when viewed as a response to the social conditions of modernity. The first sees them as part of the protest against modernity. The second sees them as forums for modern social experimentation. The third identifies them with the re-enchantment of the modern world. The fourth suggests they are born of attempts to adapt to the social and psychological tensions created by a dialectic of trust and risk in late modern societies.
Charles Ramble
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195154146
- eISBN:
- 9780199868513
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195154146.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Te may be culturally conservative, but it is by no means impervious to change. While the mechanisms for dealing with limited change have been discussed in previous chapters, the Conclusion examines ...
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Te may be culturally conservative, but it is by no means impervious to change. While the mechanisms for dealing with limited change have been discussed in previous chapters, the Conclusion examines the more substantial developments that are likely to come about as a consequence of “radical transcendence.” The resulting disenchantment—to use Weber's term—entails the irrevocable retreat of “sublime values” from a rational and secularised world. Evidence for this process in Te is found by re‐examining its laws and identifying the disappearance of some of the most complex institutions that were seen to be central to its civil religion. However, using analogies from Indo‐European linguistics and the status of transcendence in European religion, it is suggested that the conspicuous phenomenon of disenchantment is constantly balanced by a less visible process of re‐enchantment, and evidence for the latter can be found in the case of Te.Less
Te may be culturally conservative, but it is by no means impervious to change. While the mechanisms for dealing with limited change have been discussed in previous chapters, the Conclusion examines the more substantial developments that are likely to come about as a consequence of “radical transcendence.” The resulting disenchantment—to use Weber's term—entails the irrevocable retreat of “sublime values” from a rational and secularised world. Evidence for this process in Te is found by re‐examining its laws and identifying the disappearance of some of the most complex institutions that were seen to be central to its civil religion. However, using analogies from Indo‐European linguistics and the status of transcendence in European religion, it is suggested that the conspicuous phenomenon of disenchantment is constantly balanced by a less visible process of re‐enchantment, and evidence for the latter can be found in the case of Te.
Joshua Landy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195188561
- eISBN:
- 9780199949458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195188561.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Max Weber was half right: modernity is indeed characterized most centrally by the “disenchantment of the world.” At the same time, however, modernity is also characterized by the re-enchantment of ...
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Max Weber was half right: modernity is indeed characterized most centrally by the “disenchantment of the world.” At the same time, however, modernity is also characterized by the re-enchantment of the world, an enchantment, this time, on strictly secular terms. In their different ways, stage magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé both sought new, secular sources of wonder, order, and value; both came to see self-deception as indispensable to that end; and both, finally, understood that in order to maintain our necessary illusions—in order to preserve them, though we recognize them for what they are—we have to become skilled at adopting a rather peculiar state of mind. It is precisely this state of mind, a state of quasi-simultaneous conviction and distrust, that Robert-Houdin’s tricks and Mallarmé’s poems, with their paradigmatically proto-modernist reflexivity, require for their appreciation. Aesthetic modernism is not just a game, a marketing ploy, a “statement,” or a symptom; it is, instead, a literary training-ground. To become skilled at handling modernist fictions is, in the end, to strengthen our capacity to re-enchant the world.Less
Max Weber was half right: modernity is indeed characterized most centrally by the “disenchantment of the world.” At the same time, however, modernity is also characterized by the re-enchantment of the world, an enchantment, this time, on strictly secular terms. In their different ways, stage magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé both sought new, secular sources of wonder, order, and value; both came to see self-deception as indispensable to that end; and both, finally, understood that in order to maintain our necessary illusions—in order to preserve them, though we recognize them for what they are—we have to become skilled at adopting a rather peculiar state of mind. It is precisely this state of mind, a state of quasi-simultaneous conviction and distrust, that Robert-Houdin’s tricks and Mallarmé’s poems, with their paradigmatically proto-modernist reflexivity, require for their appreciation. Aesthetic modernism is not just a game, a marketing ploy, a “statement,” or a symptom; it is, instead, a literary training-ground. To become skilled at handling modernist fictions is, in the end, to strengthen our capacity to re-enchant the world.
Jeffrey L. Kosky
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226451060
- eISBN:
- 9780226451084
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226451084.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by “the disenchantment of the world.” Max Weber’s statement remains a dominant interpretation of the ...
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The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by “the disenchantment of the world.” Max Weber’s statement remains a dominant interpretation of the modern condition: the increasing capabilities of knowledge and science have banished mysteries, leaving a world that can be mastered technically and intellectually. And though this idea seems empowering, many people have faced modern disenchantment. Using intimate encounters with works of art to explore disenchantment and the possibilities of re-enchantment, this book addresses questions about the nature of humanity, the world, and God in the wake of Weber’s diagnosis of modernity. It focuses on a handful of artists—Walter De Maria, Diller and Scofidio, James Turrell, and Andy Goldworthy—to show how they introduce spaces hospitable to mystery and wonder, redemption and revelation, and transcendence and creation. What might be thought of as religious longings, the book argues, are crucial aspects of enchanting secularity when developed through encounters with these works of art. Developing a model of religion that might be significant to secular culture, it shows how this model can be employed to deepen interpretation of the art we usually view as representing secular modernity.Less
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by “the disenchantment of the world.” Max Weber’s statement remains a dominant interpretation of the modern condition: the increasing capabilities of knowledge and science have banished mysteries, leaving a world that can be mastered technically and intellectually. And though this idea seems empowering, many people have faced modern disenchantment. Using intimate encounters with works of art to explore disenchantment and the possibilities of re-enchantment, this book addresses questions about the nature of humanity, the world, and God in the wake of Weber’s diagnosis of modernity. It focuses on a handful of artists—Walter De Maria, Diller and Scofidio, James Turrell, and Andy Goldworthy—to show how they introduce spaces hospitable to mystery and wonder, redemption and revelation, and transcendence and creation. What might be thought of as religious longings, the book argues, are crucial aspects of enchanting secularity when developed through encounters with these works of art. Developing a model of religion that might be significant to secular culture, it shows how this model can be employed to deepen interpretation of the art we usually view as representing secular modernity.
Joshua Landy and Michael Saler (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This is an interdisciplinary volume that challenges the long-prevailing view of modernity as “disenchanted.” There is of course something to the widespread idea, so memorably put into words by Max ...
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This is an interdisciplinary volume that challenges the long-prevailing view of modernity as “disenchanted.” There is of course something to the widespread idea, so memorably put into words by Max Weber, that modernity is characterized by the “progressive disenchantment of the world.” Yet what is less often recognized is the fact that a powerful counter-tendency runs alongside this one, an overwhelming urge to fill the vacuum left by departed convictions, and to do so without invoking superseded belief systems. In fact, modernity produces an array of strategies for re-enchantment, each fully compatible with secular rationality. It has to, because God has many “aspects”—or to put it in more secular terms, because traditional religion offers so much in so many domains. From one thinker to the next, the question of just what, in religious enchantment, needs to be replaced in a secular world, receives an entirely different answer. Now, many of these strategies are laid out in a single volume, with contributions by specialists in literature, history, and philosophy.Less
This is an interdisciplinary volume that challenges the long-prevailing view of modernity as “disenchanted.” There is of course something to the widespread idea, so memorably put into words by Max Weber, that modernity is characterized by the “progressive disenchantment of the world.” Yet what is less often recognized is the fact that a powerful counter-tendency runs alongside this one, an overwhelming urge to fill the vacuum left by departed convictions, and to do so without invoking superseded belief systems. In fact, modernity produces an array of strategies for re-enchantment, each fully compatible with secular rationality. It has to, because God has many “aspects”—or to put it in more secular terms, because traditional religion offers so much in so many domains. From one thinker to the next, the question of just what, in religious enchantment, needs to be replaced in a secular world, receives an entirely different answer. Now, many of these strategies are laid out in a single volume, with contributions by specialists in literature, history, and philosophy.
Nick Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199939930
- eISBN:
- 9780199369775
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199939930.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies, History, Western
This book tells the remarkable and inspiring story of the British early music movement (Early Music). Since the late-1960s this quietly influential cultural phenomenon has completely transformed the ...
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This book tells the remarkable and inspiring story of the British early music movement (Early Music). Since the late-1960s this quietly influential cultural phenomenon has completely transformed the way in which we listen to ‘old’ music, revolutionizing the classical music profession in the process. Forty years on, the influence of historically informed performance (HIP) is everywhere to hear, in concert halls around the world, on radio and on disc. And yet the extraordinary rise of Early Music, founded on its apparently uncompromising agenda of ‘authenticity’, has been anything but uncontroversial. Early Music’s detractors have been quick to point out the many inconsistencies andin-authentic ‘modernist’ practices that underpin its success, highlighting its use of recordings, reliance on the market, and even its creativity (‘making it up’), as evidence ofits just notbeing what it said it was. The story of making Early Music work in the modern age(an age of disenchantment, division and split), is riven with conflict and contradiction; but it is also an altogether more upliftingnarrative about ‘re-enchanting art’, of living out the unfolding dialectic between old and new, head and heart, ‘text’ and ‘act’; and of over-coming separation, restoring the bonds betweenelements of life that we have otherwise become accustomed to holdingapart, such asour musicianship, scholarship, craftsmanship, and cultural entrepreneurship. Beyond itsfocus on the performance of classical music, therefore, this book offers the opening remarks ina much-neededconversation about the value of art and authenticityin our lives today.Less
This book tells the remarkable and inspiring story of the British early music movement (Early Music). Since the late-1960s this quietly influential cultural phenomenon has completely transformed the way in which we listen to ‘old’ music, revolutionizing the classical music profession in the process. Forty years on, the influence of historically informed performance (HIP) is everywhere to hear, in concert halls around the world, on radio and on disc. And yet the extraordinary rise of Early Music, founded on its apparently uncompromising agenda of ‘authenticity’, has been anything but uncontroversial. Early Music’s detractors have been quick to point out the many inconsistencies andin-authentic ‘modernist’ practices that underpin its success, highlighting its use of recordings, reliance on the market, and even its creativity (‘making it up’), as evidence ofits just notbeing what it said it was. The story of making Early Music work in the modern age(an age of disenchantment, division and split), is riven with conflict and contradiction; but it is also an altogether more upliftingnarrative about ‘re-enchanting art’, of living out the unfolding dialectic between old and new, head and heart, ‘text’ and ‘act’; and of over-coming separation, restoring the bonds betweenelements of life that we have otherwise become accustomed to holdingapart, such asour musicianship, scholarship, craftsmanship, and cultural entrepreneurship. Beyond itsfocus on the performance of classical music, therefore, this book offers the opening remarks ina much-neededconversation about the value of art and authenticityin our lives today.
Alison Milbank
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198824466
- eISBN:
- 9780191863257
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198824466.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
God and the Gothic undertakes a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation ...
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God and the Gothic undertakes a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation female martyrs, and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, now seen as usurpation of power by the authorities. A double gesture of repudiation and regret is evident in the consequent search for political, aesthetic, and religious mediation, which characterizes the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and Whig Providential discourse. Part I interprets eighteenth-century Gothic novels in terms of this Whig debate about the true heir, culminating in Ann Radcliffe’s melancholic theology which uses distance and loss to enable a new mediation. Part II traces the origins of the doppelgänger in Calvinist anthropology and establishes that its employment by a range of Scottish writers offers a productive mode of subjectivity, necessary in a culture equally concerned with historical continuity. In Part III, Irish Gothic is shown to be seeking ways to mediate between Catholic and Protestant identities through models of sacrifice and ecumenism, while in Part IV, nineteenth-century Gothic is read as increasingly theological, responding to materialism by a project of re-enchantment. Ghost-story writers assert the metaphysical priority of the supernatural to establish the material world. Arthur Machen and other Order of the Golden Dawn members explore the double and other Gothic tropes as modes of mystical ascent, while raising the physical to the spiritual through magical control, and the M. R. James circle restores the sacramental and psychical efficacy of objects.Less
God and the Gothic undertakes a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation female martyrs, and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, now seen as usurpation of power by the authorities. A double gesture of repudiation and regret is evident in the consequent search for political, aesthetic, and religious mediation, which characterizes the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and Whig Providential discourse. Part I interprets eighteenth-century Gothic novels in terms of this Whig debate about the true heir, culminating in Ann Radcliffe’s melancholic theology which uses distance and loss to enable a new mediation. Part II traces the origins of the doppelgänger in Calvinist anthropology and establishes that its employment by a range of Scottish writers offers a productive mode of subjectivity, necessary in a culture equally concerned with historical continuity. In Part III, Irish Gothic is shown to be seeking ways to mediate between Catholic and Protestant identities through models of sacrifice and ecumenism, while in Part IV, nineteenth-century Gothic is read as increasingly theological, responding to materialism by a project of re-enchantment. Ghost-story writers assert the metaphysical priority of the supernatural to establish the material world. Arthur Machen and other Order of the Golden Dawn members explore the double and other Gothic tropes as modes of mystical ascent, while raising the physical to the spiritual through magical control, and the M. R. James circle restores the sacramental and psychical efficacy of objects.
Nick Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199939930
- eISBN:
- 9780199369775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199939930.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies, History, Western
Theconcluding chapter draws the many strands of theresearch together around ‘the art of re-enchantment’. Early Music is explained as a processof re-enchanting classical music, and in so doing ...
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Theconcluding chapter draws the many strands of theresearch together around ‘the art of re-enchantment’. Early Music is explained as a processof re-enchanting classical music, and in so doing further clues as to why the movement took off when it did are revealed. Reflecting on (doing) art more generally, attention is drawn to the need for re-connection - with nature, knowledge, cultural entrepreneurship, capitalism, and authenticity. Only through developing our transformational capability to reconcile the apparently contradictory (whether this is old vs. new; head vs. heart; amateur vs. professional), will we trulydiscover authenticity. Our challenge as artful and authentic human beings is to allow space for (doing) art in our lives in order to become fully (authentically) ourselves, whilst also being prepared to act with authenticity so as to bring art more fully into our lives. Learning to live this unfolding dialectic is the art of re-enchantment.Less
Theconcluding chapter draws the many strands of theresearch together around ‘the art of re-enchantment’. Early Music is explained as a processof re-enchanting classical music, and in so doing further clues as to why the movement took off when it did are revealed. Reflecting on (doing) art more generally, attention is drawn to the need for re-connection - with nature, knowledge, cultural entrepreneurship, capitalism, and authenticity. Only through developing our transformational capability to reconcile the apparently contradictory (whether this is old vs. new; head vs. heart; amateur vs. professional), will we trulydiscover authenticity. Our challenge as artful and authentic human beings is to allow space for (doing) art in our lives in order to become fully (authentically) ourselves, whilst also being prepared to act with authenticity so as to bring art more fully into our lives. Learning to live this unfolding dialectic is the art of re-enchantment.
Gavin Hopps
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319709
- eISBN:
- 9781781380925
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319709.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This introductory chapter begins with a sketch of postmodern re-enchantment in order to explain one aspect of this book’s enterprise — namely, a scholarly concern not only with Derridean spectres but ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a sketch of postmodern re-enchantment in order to explain one aspect of this book’s enterprise — namely, a scholarly concern not only with Derridean spectres but also with what Mary Shelley describes as ‘the true old-fashioned, foretelling, flitting, gliding ghost’. It then explains what this has got to do with Romanticism in general and Byron in particular. It asks why his poetry, of all the Romantics, is especially relevant to debates about postmodern enchantment? And why might the re-enchantment narrative be a fruitful context in which to reconsider his work? An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a sketch of postmodern re-enchantment in order to explain one aspect of this book’s enterprise — namely, a scholarly concern not only with Derridean spectres but also with what Mary Shelley describes as ‘the true old-fashioned, foretelling, flitting, gliding ghost’. It then explains what this has got to do with Romanticism in general and Byron in particular. It asks why his poetry, of all the Romantics, is especially relevant to debates about postmodern enchantment? And why might the re-enchantment narrative be a fruitful context in which to reconsider his work? An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Paul Zawadzki
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814748923
- eISBN:
- 9780814748930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814748923.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the role of the Protocols as part of an ominous new phenomenon: secular “political religions.” The Protocols is a remarkable case study in the way that, under the secular ...
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This chapter examines the role of the Protocols as part of an ominous new phenomenon: secular “political religions.” The Protocols is a remarkable case study in the way that, under the secular pressures of modernity's skepticism, scientific rigor, and drive to separate church and state, religious beliefs reemerged in a new and different idiom. The Protocols appeared in the middle of the “1900 moment” (1880–1910), when “the general worldview was affected by the fall in influence of the great religions” and when that collapse of traditional religion created a devastating psychological void. In this sense, the Protocols as a mythical narrative participated in the “re-enchantment” of the world—acting not as a regression from modernity but as a response to it.Less
This chapter examines the role of the Protocols as part of an ominous new phenomenon: secular “political religions.” The Protocols is a remarkable case study in the way that, under the secular pressures of modernity's skepticism, scientific rigor, and drive to separate church and state, religious beliefs reemerged in a new and different idiom. The Protocols appeared in the middle of the “1900 moment” (1880–1910), when “the general worldview was affected by the fall in influence of the great religions” and when that collapse of traditional religion created a devastating psychological void. In this sense, the Protocols as a mythical narrative participated in the “re-enchantment” of the world—acting not as a regression from modernity but as a response to it.
Joshua Landy and Michael Saler
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter argues that there is a variety of secular and conscious strategies for re-enchantment, held together by a common aim of filling a God-shaped void. The discussion also introduces three ...
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This chapter argues that there is a variety of secular and conscious strategies for re-enchantment, held together by a common aim of filling a God-shaped void. The discussion also introduces three approaches to affirm the claim and offer a more nuanced understanding of the nature of modernity. The first is to reject the notion that any lingering enchantment within Western culture must of necessity be a relic (the binary approach). The second is to reject the notion that modernity is itself enchanted, unbeknown to its subjects, in a deceptive and dangerous way (the dialectical approach). It is to accept, instead, the fact that modernity embraces seeming contraries, such as rationality and wonder, secularism and faith (antinomial). The third type of enchantment is the modern enchantment par excellence: one which simultaneously enchants and disenchants.Less
This chapter argues that there is a variety of secular and conscious strategies for re-enchantment, held together by a common aim of filling a God-shaped void. The discussion also introduces three approaches to affirm the claim and offer a more nuanced understanding of the nature of modernity. The first is to reject the notion that any lingering enchantment within Western culture must of necessity be a relic (the binary approach). The second is to reject the notion that modernity is itself enchanted, unbeknown to its subjects, in a deceptive and dangerous way (the dialectical approach). It is to accept, instead, the fact that modernity embraces seeming contraries, such as rationality and wonder, secularism and faith (antinomial). The third type of enchantment is the modern enchantment par excellence: one which simultaneously enchants and disenchants.
Robert Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the homeless who have a more direct, literal, and pressing acquaintance with the modern predicament than anyone else. Their response is to construct “gardens” amid desolate ...
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This chapter examines the homeless who have a more direct, literal, and pressing acquaintance with the modern predicament than anyone else. Their response is to construct “gardens” amid desolate spaces, gardens made sometimes of flowers, or piles of leaves, but sometimes just of stuffed animals, milk cartons, or recycled refuse. This chapter argues that the homeless garden provides a corner of order, a “still point of the turning world,” and thus a point of contact between uprooted individuals and the world in which they live: a re-enchantment of space. It claims that to understand this is to refuse the equal injustice, the equal projective reduction, of seeing only distress.Less
This chapter examines the homeless who have a more direct, literal, and pressing acquaintance with the modern predicament than anyone else. Their response is to construct “gardens” amid desolate spaces, gardens made sometimes of flowers, or piles of leaves, but sometimes just of stuffed animals, milk cartons, or recycled refuse. This chapter argues that the homeless garden provides a corner of order, a “still point of the turning world,” and thus a point of contact between uprooted individuals and the world in which they live: a re-enchantment of space. It claims that to understand this is to refuse the equal injustice, the equal projective reduction, of seeing only distress.
Maiken Umbach
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter argues that modern space may be re-enchanted architecturally. This was the explicit goal of Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a prominent Catalan politician and architect. Like his romantic ...
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This chapter argues that modern space may be re-enchanted architecturally. This was the explicit goal of Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a prominent Catalan politician and architect. Like his romantic predecessors, Puig turned to the imagination in order to redress the rational and commercial excesses of the modern world. Puig recovered medieval motifs. In his hands, however, these were consciously used to connote the forward-looking and industrial traditions of the Catalan region. Puig deliberately mobilized an “imagination of place” against the “abstract space” of modern architecture, melding tradition and modernity, imagination and reality, and showing that the romantic imagination could re-enchant the world without being either escapist or reactionary.Less
This chapter argues that modern space may be re-enchanted architecturally. This was the explicit goal of Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a prominent Catalan politician and architect. Like his romantic predecessors, Puig turned to the imagination in order to redress the rational and commercial excesses of the modern world. Puig recovered medieval motifs. In his hands, however, these were consciously used to connote the forward-looking and industrial traditions of the Catalan region. Puig deliberately mobilized an “imagination of place” against the “abstract space” of modern architecture, melding tradition and modernity, imagination and reality, and showing that the romantic imagination could re-enchant the world without being either escapist or reactionary.
Daniel Jiro Tanaka
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter claims that Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch—and a large number of less self-reflective moderns—found a new locus, within the material world, for the mystical revelation. It examines ...
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This chapter claims that Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch—and a large number of less self-reflective moderns—found a new locus, within the material world, for the mystical revelation. It examines gnosticism and asymmetrical dualism. There are, in each case, two worlds, the imperfect and the perfect. The asymmetry lies in the fact that crossworld transit is in one direction only. One can't force his way into the mystery, but only hope for catching esoteric wisdom from the other side. An example is that of the self. If certain strains of psychology are right, the deepest parts of the mind are inaccessible to conscious scrutiny yet indirectly palpable and, when disclosed, redemptive.Less
This chapter claims that Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch—and a large number of less self-reflective moderns—found a new locus, within the material world, for the mystical revelation. It examines gnosticism and asymmetrical dualism. There are, in each case, two worlds, the imperfect and the perfect. The asymmetry lies in the fact that crossworld transit is in one direction only. One can't force his way into the mystery, but only hope for catching esoteric wisdom from the other side. An example is that of the self. If certain strains of psychology are right, the deepest parts of the mind are inaccessible to conscious scrutiny yet indirectly palpable and, when disclosed, redemptive.
Michel Serres
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804752992
- eISBN:
- 9780804787499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804752992.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter notes that re-enchantment takes place through language in a strikingly different way. It provides an account of a genuine, non-fanciful, potentially epistemology-generating access to the ...
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This chapter notes that re-enchantment takes place through language in a strikingly different way. It provides an account of a genuine, non-fanciful, potentially epistemology-generating access to the earliest period of human existence on earth. It is well known that when people seek to make genuine contact with another individual, he attends to the style of his utterances, not merely to the paraphrasable content. The same thing holds at a higher level. Just as the music of an individual conveys his essence, the music of a language also conveys its essence. And if one listens carefully enough, one may retrace his steps all the way back to the source of language in general.Less
This chapter notes that re-enchantment takes place through language in a strikingly different way. It provides an account of a genuine, non-fanciful, potentially epistemology-generating access to the earliest period of human existence on earth. It is well known that when people seek to make genuine contact with another individual, he attends to the style of his utterances, not merely to the paraphrasable content. The same thing holds at a higher level. Just as the music of an individual conveys his essence, the music of a language also conveys its essence. And if one listens carefully enough, one may retrace his steps all the way back to the source of language in general.
Kelly Besecke
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199930920
- eISBN:
- 9780199369768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930920.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explains the significance of reflexive spirituality in the context of four stories: (1) The disenchantment of society and the modern loss of meaning. In this story, reflexive ...
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This chapter explains the significance of reflexive spirituality in the context of four stories: (1) The disenchantment of society and the modern loss of meaning. In this story, reflexive spirituality is part of an effort to re-enchant modernity. (2) The discipline of sociology defined modernity as a movement away from religious tradition and toward reason. In this context, reflexive spirituality is a surprising combination of reason and religion that shows how religion can contribute to the project of modernity. (3) As modernity progressed, liberal religion lost a sense of its own mythology as it tried to accommodate the demand for reasonable religion. In this story, reflexive spirituality is part of a theological revitalization movement among religious liberals. (4) More and more Americans identify as “spiritual, but not religious” but don’t realize that they are part of a long tradition of unchurched spirituality in the United States. In the context of this history, reflexive spirituality offers a way of engaging religious traditions without making them totally authoritative.Less
This chapter explains the significance of reflexive spirituality in the context of four stories: (1) The disenchantment of society and the modern loss of meaning. In this story, reflexive spirituality is part of an effort to re-enchant modernity. (2) The discipline of sociology defined modernity as a movement away from religious tradition and toward reason. In this context, reflexive spirituality is a surprising combination of reason and religion that shows how religion can contribute to the project of modernity. (3) As modernity progressed, liberal religion lost a sense of its own mythology as it tried to accommodate the demand for reasonable religion. In this story, reflexive spirituality is part of a theological revitalization movement among religious liberals. (4) More and more Americans identify as “spiritual, but not religious” but don’t realize that they are part of a long tradition of unchurched spirituality in the United States. In the context of this history, reflexive spirituality offers a way of engaging religious traditions without making them totally authoritative.
Julian Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190233273
- eISBN:
- 9780190233303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190233273.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Music reworks modernity, in part, by constructing imaginary journeys to alternative places (heterotopia). A sense of transport is built into tonality which delimits borders in order to cross them and ...
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Music reworks modernity, in part, by constructing imaginary journeys to alternative places (heterotopia). A sense of transport is built into tonality which delimits borders in order to cross them and juxtaposes dynamic linear motion with static spatial fields. The rigid lines of the new transport (railways, steamships) were countered by music’s evocation of water voyages. The construction of musical landscapes paralleled the cultivation of the garden, park, and picturesque landscape as alternative aesthetic spaces, the counterweight to the metaphysical restlessness of modernity, embodied in the figure of Faust. Music’s re-enchantment of the world detunes its own rationalized order, as in Bartók’s ‘night music’, or the reversion of the French horn to its natural tuning in Britten and Ligeti. In the later twentieth century, electronic music reworks the Baroque idea of the echo as a transformation of the visual world in the elsewhere of the auditory.Less
Music reworks modernity, in part, by constructing imaginary journeys to alternative places (heterotopia). A sense of transport is built into tonality which delimits borders in order to cross them and juxtaposes dynamic linear motion with static spatial fields. The rigid lines of the new transport (railways, steamships) were countered by music’s evocation of water voyages. The construction of musical landscapes paralleled the cultivation of the garden, park, and picturesque landscape as alternative aesthetic spaces, the counterweight to the metaphysical restlessness of modernity, embodied in the figure of Faust. Music’s re-enchantment of the world detunes its own rationalized order, as in Bartók’s ‘night music’, or the reversion of the French horn to its natural tuning in Britten and Ligeti. In the later twentieth century, electronic music reworks the Baroque idea of the echo as a transformation of the visual world in the elsewhere of the auditory.
Sarah Tindal Kareem
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199689101
- eISBN:
- 9780191802027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689101.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter defines wonder, sketches out how its operation shifts over the course of the eighteenth century, and indicates wonder’s role in the re-enchantment of the Enlightenment much discussed by ...
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This chapter defines wonder, sketches out how its operation shifts over the course of the eighteenth century, and indicates wonder’s role in the re-enchantment of the Enlightenment much discussed by critics, as well as in a cognitive state of “enchanted enlightenment” associated with reading fiction. The Introduction then introduces the textual strategies that, in engaging wonder, make pleasurable a prevailing historical mood of cognitive uncertainty. The Introduction concludes by describing the book’s aims, methods, and organization, and provides an overview of the book’s remaining chapters that indicate the relationship between the book’s historical trajectory and its attention to textual strategies that engage wonder.Less
This chapter defines wonder, sketches out how its operation shifts over the course of the eighteenth century, and indicates wonder’s role in the re-enchantment of the Enlightenment much discussed by critics, as well as in a cognitive state of “enchanted enlightenment” associated with reading fiction. The Introduction then introduces the textual strategies that, in engaging wonder, make pleasurable a prevailing historical mood of cognitive uncertainty. The Introduction concludes by describing the book’s aims, methods, and organization, and provides an overview of the book’s remaining chapters that indicate the relationship between the book’s historical trajectory and its attention to textual strategies that engage wonder.
Richard H. King
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199687510
- eISBN:
- 9780191767173
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687510.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter compares two great works of Protestant modernity—James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—that bring together ...
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This chapter compares two great works of Protestant modernity—James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—that bring together American and German thought at the turn of the twentieth century. James the philosopher treated religion in psychological and experiential terms, while Weber the historian and sociologist took the theology of Calvinism with deadly seriousness. Nietzsche’s resolute “death of God” pronouncement also contrasts starkly with James’s vacillation over the ontological status of religious experience in Varieties. This speaks volumes about the failure of James not so much to confront the “abyss” as to accept that that is all there is—a tradition which this chapter argues comes to cultural fruition in what Philip Rieff called “the triumph of the therapeutic” a half century later, in the 1960s.Less
This chapter compares two great works of Protestant modernity—James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—that bring together American and German thought at the turn of the twentieth century. James the philosopher treated religion in psychological and experiential terms, while Weber the historian and sociologist took the theology of Calvinism with deadly seriousness. Nietzsche’s resolute “death of God” pronouncement also contrasts starkly with James’s vacillation over the ontological status of religious experience in Varieties. This speaks volumes about the failure of James not so much to confront the “abyss” as to accept that that is all there is—a tradition which this chapter argues comes to cultural fruition in what Philip Rieff called “the triumph of the therapeutic” a half century later, in the 1960s.
