In Mystical Society Philip Wexler, a well-known critical theorist with a background in social psychology and a special interest in spirituality, examines the revitalization of spirituality manifesting itself in society and in education. Describing what he calls "cultural changes toward the sacred," he documents a cultural shift, brought about by technological and societal changes, toward a new mysticism. Wexler explores the meaning for this new spirituality for our daily lives, for social theory, and for education. From the pervasiveness of a spiritual vernacular to the integration of spiritual practices into our highly individualized and technologized lives, Wexler lays out the evidence for a growing movement, and then draws parallels to periods of mystical revitalization from the past. In the course of this discussion, he draws on the work of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, as well as from contemporary social theory.
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"In Mystical Society Philip Wexler, a well-known critical theorist with a background in social psychology and a special interest in spirituality, examines the revitalization of spirituality manifesting"
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* 1. Mystical Society: Prologue * Religion, Sociology, Education * Interaction: Structure, Discourse, and Being * Mysticism: Analysis and Utopia * 2. Society: Informationalism, Mysticism, Revitalization * Informational Society * Religion and Mysticism * Revitalization * Examples * 3. Self: Reselfing * Immortal Self * Eliade and Hasidism * Reselfing * Classical Sociology: Religion, Power and Self * Postmodern Self in Society: Melucci and Foucault * A Typology of Reselfing * Self and Structure * 4. Criticism: From Culture to Being * Lasch: Social Criticism and the Sacred * Gnosticism and the New Age * Social Ethic of Being * Frankfurt School * Embodied Criticism * Phantasms and Energy * 5. Social Theory: From Society to Cosmos * The Social * Social Energy * Beyond Dualism * Reintegration * Education As Embodied Mediation * From the Social to the Cosmic * 6. Education: From Postmodernism to Ethnography of Being * Educational Research * Context of Educational Research * Mystical Education * School Ethnography of Being * Prophetic Education * 7. Social Interaction: From Alienation to Mysticism * Destruction * Creation * American Religion: Drugs, Nature, Immanence * William James: Over the Threshold to Mystical Revitalization * Hindu Tantrism: New Dynamics of Embodied Mystical Mediation * Hasidism: Individual Redemption and Collective Messianism * Secular Mysticism * 8. Epilogue: Mystical Sociology and Beyond * Mystical Sociology * Self * Social Interaction * Society * Pedagogy of Revitalization * "Forgotten Things,"
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780813391434
Publisert
2000-11-27
Utgiver
Vendor
Westview Press Inc
Vekt
453 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
E, 04
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
176

Forfatter

Biographical note

Philip Wexler is Michael Scanding Professor of Education and Sociology in the Warner Graduate School at the University of Rochester, and he is Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His previous books include: Critical Social Psychology, Social Analysis of Education, Becoming Somebody, and Holy Sparks.