Godless Intellectuals?

Alexander Tristan Riley received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego in 2000. Currently he is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University. He writes and teaches in the areas of cultural and social theory and cultural sociology.

• Acknowledgements Chapter One: The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred Chapter Two: Intellectual Production and Interpretation: The Intellectual Habitus Chapter Three: The Scene of Durkheimian Sociology: A View of the Parisian Intellectual Field at the Turn of the 19th century Chapter Four: Aecoles, Masters, and The Dreyfus Affair : Institutions and Networks that Shaped the Durkheimians and the Political Affair that Positioned Them Chapter Five: The Scene of Poststructuralism: A View of the Parisian Intellectual Field from the End of WWII to the 1960s Chapter Six: Aecoles, Masters, and May '68: Institutions and Networks that Shaped the Poststructuralists and the Political Affair that Positioned Them Chapter Seven: Being a Durkheimian Intellectual Chapter Eight: The Sacred in Durkheimian Thought I Chapter Nine: The Sacred in Durkheimian Thought II: Ascetic and Mystic Durkheimianisms Chapter Ten: The Descent of the Mystics: The College de Sociologie and Critique as the Conduits to Poststructuralism Chapter Eleven: Being a Poststructuralist Intellectual Chapter Twelve: The Sacred in Poststructuralist Thought Chapter Thirteen: Godless Intellectuals, then? Or - Something Else?

Few have failed to recognize the return of the religious as a factor in social theory. None, so far, has more cogently explained the contributions of French social thought to the challenge of the Sacred in our day than Riley.A" * Charles Lemert, author of Durkheim's Ghosts Alexander Riley's radically revisionist account throws down the gauntlet to the conventional wisdom of intellectual history. Riley offers a cultural sociology of intellectuals that explores the sacred narratives that motivate their life and work...original and compelling.A" * Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University