Modern Enchantment and the Ambivalent Sacred

• In Event: Theory Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Contemporary sociology often assumes that enchantment belongs to the premodern world, surviving in modernity only as residue, illusion, or revival. This paper challenges that assumption, arguing that modernity generates its own distinctive forms of enchantment, rooted in modern culture and social structures rather than survivals from an earlier epoch. I offer a reinterpretation of Durkheim’s theory of the sacred that is better suited to modern conditions, foregrounding the ambivalent nature of the sacred—its pure and impure poles—as a core mechanism through which affective intensity is produced. I illustrate how this mechanism operates across three strategic domains of modern enchantment: mystery, escape, and hope. Mystery transforms gaps in knowledge into sites of heightened attention and imaginative projection; escape reconfigures spatial and institutional constraints into opportunities for transgression; and hope transposes the ordinary present into a sacred, promising future. These domains reveal that modern enchantments are structurally decentralized, embedded across differentiated social and institutional spheres, and central to understanding motivation, cultural practices, and social life today.

Author

• Dmitry Kurakin, The University of Virginia