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History Notes Approaches to History Notes

Approaches Sociology Religion Notes

Updated Approaches Sociology Religion Notes

Approaches to History Notes

Approaches to History

Approximately 45 pages

These notes provide comprehensive cover of the Approaches to History topics of Gender and Sociology. They were the sole resource that I used for my preliminary examination revision, in which I achieved a mark of 67%. They include a wealth of examples spanning across a wide range of time periods (from medieval to modern), as well as discussion of a broad range of historiography, making them a complete resource for studying for the Approaches prelim, if you are taking the Gender or Sociology option...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Approaches to History Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Approaches Revision Notes:

SOCIOLOGY:

Religion:

Useful categories:

  • Popular religion.

  • Focus on science.

  • Modernisation.

  • Institutional decline.

1. Historiography:

  • Weber:

  • Called secularisation “the defining feature of Western civilisation”.

  • Judeo-Christian beliefs, because they are monotheistic, are especially vulnerable to simplification and rationalisation.

  • Focused on Protestantism as cause of decine: in ‘Prot ethic and spirit of capitalism’, says how certain types of Prot e.g. Calvinism encouraged shift in priorities ‘good capitalist’ behaviour, obsession with instrumental reasoning.

  • Marxian alternative:

  • Capitalism causes dislocations to life, gets people out of habit of churchgoing. (Really? Instability > religion).

  • Notion that religion = palliative that comes from socio-ec problems. Automatic response.

  • Proletarian Rev would finish off the process.

  • S J Green:

  • Study focused on Halifax, Keighley and Denholme, 1870-1920.

  • Points at the “overwhelming sense of decline” you initially see is importantly accompanied by an assumption of decline.

  • Has no doubt that “religion is still alive in the modern world”, especially in the realm of popular belief.

  • However, it does not perform the same social role.

  • Yes, there is a diff between declining institutions and pop belief. “But that gap was not a chasm”.

  • R Wallis & S Bruce:

  • Real, important test = relevance of relig to society.

  • “Religion is a singularly resilient phenomenon”.

  • It is “precisely the claim of the secularisation thesis that religious belief and practice will tend to become more individualised, fragmented and privatised” (my point).

  • Therefore, generally support the thesis.

  • Bryan Wilson:

  • Put forward argument about societalisation.

  • A Gilbert:

  • “Modern English society is a context in which significant religious commitment is a subcultural phenomenon”.

  • WW1 = real cut-off pt for religion.

  • Industrialisation had an impact – talks of “the crucial metamorphosis from pre-industrial soc to the mod industrial nation of the C20th”.

  • Callum Brown:

  • Argues secularisation did not really occur until 1960s – when it did, it was due to the actions of women.

  • E.g. ‘Spiritual Thermometer’ (Drummond Tract Enterprise, late C19th) quoted – at bottom of scale = male activities e.g. perdition, drunkenness, fornication.

  • Then, key pt = religion became less central to Brits’ identity.

  • Focus on language.

  • Jeremy Morris:

  • Provides criticism of Brown.

  • Does not acknowledge small shifts within ‘discursive Christianity’ e.g. decline of home as moral centre in 1920s and 1930s as evangelical attack on places like pubs declined.

  • Does not acknowledge diff in pop discourse.

  • Should acknowledge shifts in proscribed relig e.g. Evangelical ideas about heaven and hell.

  • Does not address relig’s impact on soc & pol.

  • “Sec… is complex, multi-layered, by no means inevitable”.

  • Main pt = sheer complexity of issue.

  • Hugh McLeod:

  • Focused on secularisation of society, not mind.

  • Sees 3 aspects: individ belief; role in public insts; role in creating common language.

  • Sees secularisation as a contest, rather than a process.

  • Also talks of “baffling complexity” of issue.

  • “The central fact of the modern religious situation is competition”.

  • E.g. Paris, 3rd Rep: Catholicism + new movements e.g. spiritism, freethought, socialism.

  • E.g. ‘It has become a collection of religious opinions’ (P Boutry, Ain, Eastern France, 1815-80).

  • J Cox:

  • Today, “relig is not supposed to be important, at least not in England”.

  • Likes the sec theory, although acknowledges flaws: “yet to discover a coherent alternative.

  • Labels it “the relig counterpart of modernisation”.

  • Agrees with McLeod: “it is pluralism which most clearly distinguishes the present from the past”.

  • S C Williams:

  • Looks at Met Borough of Southwark (1880-1939), where relig = an “integrated facet” of urban society.

  • Wants to focus more on popular belief: “belief itself continues to elude us”.

  • Emphasises importance of folk customs.

  • E.g. giving lock of hair between 2 pieces bread to passing dog to cure whooping cough.

  • Stresses need to focus on individual actors, esp through oral history.

  • Categories like ‘elite v plebeian’ did not make sense to contemporaries.

  • “For the participants, the 2 discourses were intermeshed”.

  • Me:

  • You cannot take sec thesis to mean the complete decline of all religion – this would be ridiculous. Social function factors are v important to take into consideration.

  • Like Morris’ point about complexity.

  • Pluralism idea interesting – could apply to absolutely everyone.

2. What is secularisation theory?

  • “The secularisation thesis is a research programme with, at its core, an explanatory model” (R Wallis & S Bruce).

  • First mentioned by W E H Lecky (historian, 1865) – spoke of “general secularisation of European intellect”.

  • Focuses on 3 aspects of modernisation as the basis of this explanatory model: social differentiation; societalization; rationalisation.

  • C19th: contemps believed their age to be less relig than previous ones.

  • E.g. Mathew Arnold’s poem, ‘Dover Beach’.

  • Secularisation thesis is relevant:

  • There is “intellectual symbiosis” (S J Green) between it and historical contexts.

  • “The line between sociology and social history is very blurred, and sometimes non-existent” (A Gilbert).

  • Centres around modernisation:

  • Industrialisation focus on individual achievement.

  • S J Green: more complex than this – created some individs “in search of spiritual solace”. Highlights complexity of such a personal issue.

  • H McLeod: “the ind village… became the favoured site for more intense, emotional and personal types of religion”.

  • Social differentiation:

  • Diff insts taking over role of Church.

  • Furthered by economic growth: more variety in life experiences, harder to find “single moral universe” (R Wallis & S Bruce).

  • Societalisation:

  • Society, rather than community, becomes basis of life.

  • Linked to arguments of conservative...

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