ABSTRACT
In its dreams as the self-appointed surveyor of the landscapes of modernity, sociology imperialises all pertaining to the social. By contrast, however, in its explorations of sociological noir, sociology risks becoming a sort of sorcerer’s apprentice conjuring up from collective memory ghosts that modernity had promised to exorcise but which still return. They wander around the ruins so associated with the dark Gothic as unwanted guests bringing with them tales of the sublime whose narratives speak of the Satanic, of sin, death and other things to haunt. They signify properties of religion that secularity enticed modernity into thinking had long been abandoned. If sociological noir is a facet of postsecularity, then it serves to remind of the dark intractables attached to the return of religion. Coming as irruptions to disturb and sabotage, these forgotten entities of collective memory arise in ways peculiar to modernity.
