Durkheim in the Bay Area: Bellah's creative reading as a beautiful case of reception

Jean-Louis Fabiani

Chapter 8 in The Elgar Companion to Émile Durkheim, 2026, pp 125-140 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The contribution is based on Robert Bellah's introduction to Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society (1973) and second on other references to the French sociologist in Bellah's work. The publication of the book took place in a time of Durkheimian effervescence: Steven Lukes’ Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work was published in the same year and a new Durkheimology appeared in the English-speaking world. Bellah's statement is quite strong: Durkheim can “be seen as a theologian of French civil religion.” The chapter analyzes it with respect to the state of French society at the turn of the century and Durkheim's social project. The chapter is an attempt to account for the complexity of Bellah's reception, which can be defined as a reinterpretation of Durkheim's sociology in a post-rationalist direction. The question of civil religion is reexamined in the light of the transatlantic transfers carrying different meanings of civil religion.

Keywords: Reception; Religion; Rationalism; Civil religion; Effervescence; Prophecy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035322923
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