Sara James - Metaphysical Sociology: On the Work of John Carroll

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Metaphysical Sociology

This volume critically engages with the work of the acclaimed Australian sociologist John Carroll. It makes the argument for a metaphysical sociology, which Carroll has proposed should focus on the questions of fundamental existence that confront all humans: Where do I come from?, What should I do with my life? and What happens to me when I die?. These questions of meaning, in the secular modern West, have become difficult to answer. As contemporary individuals increasingly draw on their inner resources, or ontological qualities, to pursue quests for meaning, the key challenge for a metaphysical sociology concerns the cultural resources available to people and the manner in which they are cultivated. Through wide-ranging discussions which include, film, romantic love, terrorism and video games, Metaphysical Sociology takes up this challenge. The contributors include emerging and established sociologists, a philosopher, a renowned actor and a musician. As such, this collection will appeal to scholars of social theory and sociology, and to the general reader with interests in morality, art, culture and the fundamental questions of human existence.

Sara James is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University, Australia. She is the author of Making a Living, Making a Life: Work, Meaning and Self-Identity (Routledge, 2017), a major study of the significance of work in contemporary lives. Sara is co-author of Sociology in Todays World (3rd edition), an introductory sociology text for first-year students, and in 2016 she co-edited a special issue of M/C Journal on Authenticity .

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Morality, Society and Culture

www.routledge.com/Morality-Society-and-Culture/book-series/ASHSER1429

The Morality, Society and Culture series publishes rigorous scholarly work exploring how moral questioning and action have been transformed in contemporary 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 is Professor at The Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University, Australia and Senior Fellow at the Centrum Myli Jana Pawa 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 Bauman and What Use is Sociology? , and co-editor of Utopia: Social Theory and the Future .

Published

Making a Living, Making a Life: Work, Meaning and Self-Identity
Sara James

Sociological Noir: Irruptions and the Darkness of Modernity
Kieran Flanagan

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Metaphysical Sociology

On the Work of John Carroll

Edited by Sara James

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First published 2018
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2018 selection and editorial matter, Sara James; individual chapters, the contributors

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ISBN: 978-1-138-09178-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-10783-7 (ebk)

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Wayne Bradshaw is a PhD candidate at James Cook University in Townsville with a Bachelors degree in English and a Masters degree in Politics. His research focuses on the influence of the writings of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche on the radical politics of the literary avant-garde, using an analytical framework that draws upon John Carrolls Break-Out from the Crystal Palace . He has served as an editorial assistant for both Literature in North Queensland and eTropic .

John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He has degrees in mathematics, economics and sociology from the universities of Melbourne and Cambridge. His work focuses on culture, and its crucial role in the human search for meaning, with particular reference to the modern Western society. His recent books include The Existential Jesus (2007), Ego and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning (2008), Greek Pilgrimage: In Search of the Foundations of the West (2010) and Land of the Golden Cities: Australias Exceptional Prosperity and the Culture that Made It (2017).

John Dicksons PhD is titled Strange Gods: The Crisis of Meaning after Nietzsche . He began this project at Yale University and completed it under the supervision of Professor John Carroll in 2014. He has contributed a chapter titled Philip Rieff and the Impossible Culture to The Anthem Companion to Philip Rieff (2017). John is also a musician who records, among various projects, under the name Little John. His last solo recording was called Put Your Hands on Me.

Margaret Gibson is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia and a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. She is author of numerous publications on death, mourning and material culture, including Objects of the Dead: Mourning and Memory in Everyday Life (MUP, 2008), and has a forthcoming book, Living and Dying in a Virtual World: Digital Kinships, Nostalgia and Mourning in Second Life (Palgrave). Her more recent research focuses on digital materiality and mourning, and the transnational, social interface of online mourning and memorialisation practices.

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Sara James is a Lecturer at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Sara is a cultural sociologist whose research focuses on work, self-identity and meaning. She is the author of Making a Living, Making a Life: Work, Meaning and Self-Identity (Routledge, 2017), a major study of the significance of work in contemporary lives. In 2016, she co-edited a special issue of M/C Journal on the theme of authenticity. She is co-author of Sociology in Todays World , 3rd edition (2014), an introductory sociology text for first-year students, and Key Concepts in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2018).