Throughout the first half of the course, theoretical features provided by some classic authors such as, Durkheim, Weber, Berger, Bourdieu, Habermas will be analyzed. Their study will be framed into the epistemological pattern of sociology of cultural processes, probed through the dialectic between modernity and individuals dwelling in the risk society (Abbruzzese). In this course, the process of individualization marking the digital modernity which led to the lack of attractiveness of traditional symbolic universes will be covered. Hence follow the loss of the traditional certainties and the dimension of reintegration, conceived as the construction of a new kind of social bond. Such a process of liberation leads to a loss of values and reintegration. This is why Beck hints at the recovery of the margins of individual choices highlighted in the Personal God, inspired by the conception of the “misunderstanding of religions”, often interpreted rather as a hinder than a way to achieve peace and integration. Beck develops his analysis of personal God through six epistemological axis (determined by the chapters of his book): 1) The diary of the “personal God”; 2) the return of the gods and the crisis of European modernity; 3) tolerance and violence: the two faces of religion; 4) the heresy or the invention of the “personal God”; 5) the cunning of the collateral effects: five models of civilization of religious conflicts; 6) peace instead of truth? Future scenarios of religion in the global risk society.
Thus it is possible to focus on some possible paths of sociological analysis about the relationship between individualization and cosmo-politicization, without leaving out some issues related to the civilization of religious conflicts as they are framed into the pattern of reflexive modernity and symbolic complexity of our post-modernity.