The Return of the Sacred. Nature and Spirituality in Contemporary Society

The aim of the course is to discuss the sociological reasons behind the return of the sacred in contemporary society. In this sense, will be debated also the great relevance attributed today to the imagery of nature, in order to introduce the phenomenon of “ecospirituality”. For this purpose it is necessary to highlight the features of late modern society, especially related to the weakening of the legitimacy of the main modernity universes of meaning: the first lesson will be devoted to the analysis of these aspects investigated through a long-term socio-historical approach; discussing the genesis of the postmodern imagery especially in respect of the great changes that affected the relationship between human and non-human nature, is the goal of the second lesson; in the third lesson it will be analyzed the phenomenon of “desecularization” and the social processes connected to the “re-enchantment of the world”; in the fourth and last lesson, what is called “spiritual turn” in scientific literature, will be discussed: in this way it will be possible to underline the differences between religion - traditionally understood - and spirituality. Particular attention will be given, as mentioned before, to “ecospirituality”. The goal of the course is to provide PhD students with useful conceptual tools for understanding some of the main phenomena related to the transformations in the relationship between human being and sacred in contemporary society.