Clarifications and Terminology

About the lecture

In this lecture, we clarify the meaning of the term “modernity”, focusing in particular on: (i) the distinction between “modernity” as a set of structural transformations in politics, economy and society, and “modernism” as a cultural phenomenon; (ii) the relationship between socio-economic structure and culture, as this is understood by Karl Marx and Max Weber; (iii) the issue of timing in thinking about modernity, in which we consider several options for demarcating the beginning of modernity, and opt for the transformations associated with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

About the lecturer

Professor Grace Davie is Professor Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Exeter. She is a leading sociologist of religion and has written widely on religion in the modern world. Her publications include Religion in Public Life: Levelling the Ground (2017), Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (2015), and The Sociology of Religion: A Critical Agenda (2013).