ABSTRACT

Setting the Scene Introduction In recent years the importance of classical figures and texts in sociology has been reinforced by an upsurge of books on their contemporary relevance (see amongst others, Craib, 1997a; Morrison, 1995; Camic, 1997; Dodd, 1999; Turner, 1999a; Ray, 1999; Pampel, 2000; Tucker, 2001; Adams, 2002). The contemporary revival of interest in the work of Emile Durkheim is part of this movement. Recent pieces by Turner (1993), Watts Miller (1996), Mellor (1998), Thompson (1998), Stedman Jones (2001), Shilling and Mellor (2001) and others attest to this contemporary revival of interest in Durkheim’s work, with a particular emphasis being placed on the author’s concern with the sociological problem of religion and its relationship to morality. Other writers such as Cotterrell (1999) have even gone so far as to situate Durkheim’s interest in the law within the context of his broad analysis of the moral and religious domains.