Durkheim in Dialogue

One hundred years after the publication of the great sociological treatise, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, this new volume shows how aptly Durkheim¹s theories still resonate with the study of contemporary and historical religious societies. The volume applies the Durkheimian model to multiple cases, probing its resilience, wondering where it might be tweaked, and asking which aspects have best stood the test of time. A dialogue between theory and ethnography, this book shows how Durkheimian sociology has become a mainstay of social thought and theory, pointing to multiple ways in which Durkheim¹s work on religion remains relevant to our thinking about culture.

One hundred years after the publication of the great sociological treatise, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, this new volume shows how aptly Durkheim¹s theories still resonate with the study of contemporary and historical religious societies. The volume applies the Durkheimian model to multiple cases, probing its resilience, wondering where it might be tweaked, and asking which aspects have best stood the test of time. A dialogue between theory and ethnography, this book shows how Durkheimian sociology has become a mainstay of social thought and theory, pointing to multiple ways in which Durkheim¹s work on religion remains relevant to our thinking about culture.

Acknowledgments
List of Contributors

Introduction: Durkheim in Disciplinary Dialogue
Sondra L. Hausner

Chapter 1. The Notion of Soul and Science Positive: A Retrieval of Durkheim’s Method
Karen E. Fields

PART I: SOCIAL FORMS

Chapter 2. Return to Durkheim: Civil Religion and the Moral Reconstruction of China
Zhe Ji

Chapter 3. Elementary Forms of War: Performative Aspects of Youth Militia in Sierra Leone
Paul Richards

Chapter 4. Elementary Forms vs. Psychology in Contemporary Cinema
Louise Child

PART II: COLLECTIVE MINDS

Chapter 5. Durkheim’s Sacred-Profane Opposition: What Should We Make of It?
N.J. Allen

Chapter 6. Durkheim and the Primitive Mind: An Archaeological Retrospective
Clive Gamble

Chapter 7. Durkheim, Anthropology, and the Question of the Categories in Les Formes Élémentaires de la vie Religieuse
Susan Stedman Jones

PART III: EFFERVESCENCE

Chapter 8. Is Individual to Collective as Freud is to Durkheim?
Sondra L. Hausner

Chapter 9. Collective Representations, Discourses of Power, and Personal Agency: Three Incommensurate Histories of a Collaborator’s Rebellion in the Colonial Sudan
Gerd Baumann

Chapter 10. Actants Amassing (AA): Beyond Collective Effervescence and the Social
Adam Yuet Chau

FIN

Chapter 11. The Creation and Problematic Achievement of Les Formes Élémentaires
W. Watts Miller