ABSTRACT
The present chapter explores the idea of ‘the sanctuary’ as a way in which people look for anchorage, and create and re-create images of a society in order to cope with and negotiate life in the city. It mainly draws on Durkheim's work on ritual, symbolism and the sacred, together with his account of individual and collective representations. But it also discusses these concerns through other writers, notably Freud and Ricœur, as well as drawing on Kant's theory of art to show how Durkheim sees ritual – especially sacred drama – as at once a form of symbolism and an aesthetics, complete with the energies of a free creative ‘surplus’. The chapter opens with investigations of places that are essential to the robustness of the modern city – that is, sanctuaries for coming to terms with modernity. These are where individuals can enjoy a relatively unsupervised personal life, with the possibility to perform in accordance with a social etiquette for people who are equal, as if in a theatre. They are eager to come there out of free choice, they gather as equals, and what counts are the skills and merits that are performed when meeting.
