Sociological Noir: Irruptions and the Darkness of Modernity

362 Pages·2016·3.462 MB·English

by  Kieran Flanagan

Sociological Noir
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 Noirexplores 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 Flanaganis 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).
Morality, Society and Culture
The Morality, Society and Culture series publishes rigorous scholarly work
exploring how moral questioning and action have been transformed in contem-
porary social relationships and by contemporary culture. Can cultural texts such
as films, television broadcasts and art be vehicles for moral demands? Do we learn
what it means to be ‘good’ from soap opera and advertising? If cultural texts are
forms of moral mimesis, then are the standards of the ‘right’ and ‘good’ dependent
on external considerations of cultural visibility and social relevance – and if so,
how are some moral issues made visible or invisible, relevant or irrelevant?
Now that morality has become cultural and is amenable to sociological and
cultural study, as well as philosophical investigation, this series explores how and
to what effect moral questioning, action and debate are inextricably entwined with
contemporary social and cultural forms, texts and institutions. The books in this
series offer new understandings of the connection of morality, society and culture,
analyse key contemporary events, and establish new methodologies.
Editor
Keith Tester
Keith Tester is Professor at the Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology
at LaTrobe University, Australia, and Senior Fellow at the Centrum Myśli Jana
Pawła II, Warsaw, Poland. He is the author of Humanitarianism and Modern
Culture, Panic, Eric Rohmer: Film as Theology, Moral Culture, The Social
Thought of Zygmunt Bauman, and Animals and Society, co-author of Conversations
with Zygmunt Baumanand What Use Is Sociology?, and co-editor of Utopia: Social
Theory and the Future.
Sociological Noir
Irruptions and the Darkness of Modernity
Kieran Flanagan
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2017 Kieran Flanagan
The right of Kieran Flanagan to be identified as author of this work
as been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Flanagan, Kieran, 1944–author.
Title: Sociological noir: irruptions and the darkness of modernity /
Kieran Flanagan.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017.
Series: Morality, society and culture |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016015797| ISBN 9781138206915 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315463650 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Critical theory. | Sociology –Philosophy. | Film noir.
Classification: LCC HM480 .F53 2017 | DDC 301.01 –dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015797
ISBN: 978-1-138-20691-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-46365-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
To Peter C. Jupp
For editorial affirmation and
continued support
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 A sociology of gloom: initial forebodings 26
2 Collective memory: remembrance and the constitution
of images 75
3 Ruins: irruptions in the fragments 116
4 Dark Gothic: life in the shade 155
5 Satan: modernity’s imaginary friend 190
6 Sociology, sin and expiation 215
7 Sociodicy or theodicy? A matter of sociological choice 253
Conclusion 295
Appendix: Fingering apparitions – the sociologist and
the vulgar statue 314
Bibliography 316
Index 335
Acknowledgements
By its nature, writing a study such as this one is a rather solitary exercise. Yet,
along the route of its construction, many kindnesses were encountered that made
the whole exercise unexpectedly pleasurable. Without these aids, and the generous
sharings of others, the journey of writing would have been bleak and lonely. I owe
an enormous debt to Michal Łuczewsk. On behalf of the Centre for Thought of
John Paul II and the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, he organised
four highly important conferences on sociology and theology between 2012 and
2015, which provided vital outlets for floating some of the ideas behind this study.
He also facilitated the publication of some reflections on my travels through
sociology and theology, a journey with few fellow travellers in the United
Kingdom, hence the migration to Poland to find sources of thought and support.
I must thank Michael Robertson, the parish priest of Fairford, Gloucestershire.
He had an uncanny capacity to articulate what I was struggling to express. Again,
my debts are to Peter C. Jupp for his charitable and gimlet scrutiny of the text. In
my writing over the past 20 or so years, he has been indispensable in his support.
Michael Liversidge, Emeritus Dean of Arts, University of Bristol, was enormously
generous in sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of art. He gave me some
invaluable leads without which the study would have been impoverished.
For the publication of the book, my thanks go to Sarah Lloyd, then my editor
at Ashgate. She was a patient and vital source of encouragement for the completion
of the study. Before her retirement in June 2015, she coped with equanimity when
realisation dawned, at this end, that the manuscript contracted had to be split into
two. Neil Jordan succeeded as editor for this study and saw it through with much
efficiency and support, for which I am most grateful. My thanks also go to Keith
Tester, the series editor, a long-standing prop for my endeavours, whose aid in
getting this lengthy study published was vital.
In SPAIS (School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies) at the
University of Bristol, Professor Greg McLennan, its head, supplied much support,
not least in planting into my head that postsecularity was not something to be
sniffed at, but to be explored. Mention should be made of Willie Watts Miller,
who caused more of Durkheim to seep into my mind than I sometimes realised.
Much of the study was written on the top floor of 11 Priory Road. Jo Haynes
and Miriam Snellgrove added to the spice of writing life in ways that facilitated
Acknowledgements ix
progress on a vexatious manuscript. Junko Yamashita was incredibly helpful in
coming to my aid when I did something stupid on the computer – which was often.
In the main office, Susan Battin and Daniel Hemings provided much-needed
administrative aid. A lot is owed to the undergraduate and postgraduate students
on my courses on the sociology of religion at the University of Bristol, who in
rain, wind and snow piled into a coach to go up to Tintern to see what one acidly
declared in advance to be ‘a pile of rubble’. Others were too polite to say the same.
The return journeys were deeply satisfying as the students readjusted their image
of a ruin to reflect their new ways of seeing one.
As before, Clifton Cathedral at Bristol was a vital source for my theology. Its
clergy, choir, fellow servers and congregation kept my feet on the ground and gave
me a vision of what was worth seeking. A divine joke, played over the years, of
locking me in a hexagonal modernist concrete block of a cathedral, whose capacity
to leak was seemingly perpetual and which now is undergoing extensive roof
repairs, might well have been an odd form of exile where dreams of compensatory
Gothic relief could only be pursued in the imagination. When matters needed to
be grounded, the choir stalls of adjacent Anglican Gothic cathedrals at Salisbury,
Wells and Worcester facilitated the sketching of many ideas pertaining to the dark
and light versions of this sociological venture before choral evensong – when the
men and boys were singing.
My brother was supportive as always for the writing of what seemed an
interminable project. Finally, I must thank the anonymous referee for a generous
and helpful report on the manuscript.
Kieran Flanagan
14 March 2016