Enchantment - A Critical Primer - Ian Alexander Cuthbertson

Enchantment - A Critical Primer - Ian Alexander Cuthbertson

Rational Re-Enchantment

Enchantment - A Critical Primer - Ian Alexander Cuthbertson

Ian Alexander Cuthbertson [+-]
Dawson College
Ian Alexander Cuthbertson is a professor in the Humanities Department at Dawson College in Montréal, Québec. Ian is broadly interested in exploring how the category “religion” is deployed to legitimize certain beliefs, practices, and institutions while delegitimizing others.

Description

In this chapter, I describe a particular version of re-enchantment in which enchantment primarily involves heightened emotions or affective states and in which re-enchantment therefore involves delight that is free from the delusion associated with premodern belief in magic and spirits. I begin with an overview of the theoretical framework that supports this view of re-enchantment, focusing primarily on the work of Michael Saler and Jane Bennett. I also outline some arguments for secular re-enchantment put forward by a number of scholars working in different fields. Borrowing from Jane Bennett’s description of the various potential sources of enchantment, I organize these accounts of secular re-enchantment into three general categories: culture, technology, and nature. For each category, I provide a brief outline of the specific variety of disenchantment that is apparently being reversed by rational re-enchantment.

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Citation

Cuthbertson, Ian Alexander. Rational Re-Enchantment. Enchantment - A Critical Primer. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. Jun 2024. ISBN 9781800504462. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=43968. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.43968. Jun 2024

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