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Religion as a Chain of Memory

Daniele Hervieu-Leger
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chain
community
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french sociologists
individual
major
member
memory
modern
nature
new account
original
point
problem
religion
societies
stylish
systems
today
tradition
view
western society

Product details

  • ISBN 9780745620473
  • Weight: 312g
  • Dimensions: 154 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 18 May 2000
  • Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Description
This is a major new account of the nature of religion and its changing role in modern societies, by one of the most original French sociologists writing on religion today. In a stylish and accessible study, Hervieu-Léger addresses the problem of how to distinguish religion from other systems of meaning in modern Western society.

The crucial point, she argues, is the chain of memory and tradition which makes the individual believer a member of the community. From this point of view, religion is the ideological, symbolic and social device by which individual and collective awareness of belonging to a lineage of believers is created and controlled.

Modern societies, Hervieu-Lé:ger argues, are not more rational than past societies, but rather suffer from a kind of collective amnesia. They are less and less capable of maintaining a living collective 'chain' of memory as a source of meaning. However, as major religious traditions decline, a range of surrogate memories appears, which also permit the contraction of collective identities. These 'small memories' are creating an upsurge of 'emotional communities' and the affirmation of ethno-religions within Europe and elsewhere.

This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of theology, religious studies and sociology.
About Daniele Hervieu-Leger
Dani?le Hervieu-LUger is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and chief editor of the Archives des Sciences Sociales des Religions.

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