K. Flanagan - Böcker

This is an original study of the sociological imagination in regard to visual culture. It explores the reflexive dimensions of choice over seeing or not seeing in relation to paintings, images and islands. Bourdieu, Goffman and Simmel provide the basis for insights into how reflexivity in sociology has unexplored theological implications.

This is a study of the social construction and the impression management of the public forms of worship of Catholicism and Anglicanism. Interest centres on the dilemmas of the liturgical actors in handling a transaction riddled with ambiguities and potential misunderstandings. Simmel, Berger and Goffman are used in an original manner to understand these rites which pose as much of a problem for sociology as for their practitioners.;These rites are treated as forms of play and hermeneutics is linked to a negative theology to understand their performative basis. The study is an effort to link sociology to theology in a way that serves to focus on an issue of social praxis.

A unique study of the link between theology and culture from a sociological perspective which addresses the issue of the pursuit of enchantment in the context of postmodernity.

This lively and highly original study explores the link between visual culture and religion in terms of tales, memory and character. It draws out the sociological implications of handling the virtual and virtue in ways of seeing. Using Simmel's approach to religiosity in his third study of sociology in theology, Flanagan explores how spectacle is to be understood in ways that yield trust. The study will be invaluable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on visual culture, sociology of religion and theology.