Reenchantment in the Age of Post-nostalgia: Transformations of the Sacred in Postsecular Culture
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The article explores the phenomenon of reenchantment within the cultural field of late modernity as a response to the loss of stable symbolic structures. Reenchantment is proposed not as a return of transcendence, but as a cultural technique for representing the sacred under post-secular conditions. The analysis identifies three modes of reenchantment – ontological, aesthetic, and simulacral – with a focus on their interplay with post-nostalgia, memorial practices, neo-ritual forms, and ideological instruments of sacralization. Special attention is given to the Ukrainian context, where nostalgia and the sacred emerge as culturally and politically operative mechanisms amid war and traumatic loss. Methodologically, the article combines critical discourse analysis, the phenomenology of culture, and aesthetic theory. It is shown that reenchantment functions as a structurally ambivalent phenomenon – oscillating between symbolic compensation and the programmed simulation of meaning.
Source: Doxa
Author: Ivan Maslov
Institution: Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4411620182