04 Jun Francesco Piraino
Francesco Piraino
LECTURE
Occulture: A Material Cartography of Contemporary Spirituality and the Arts
Occulture describes the growing presence of esotericism, occultism, magic, and spirituality in media, popular culture, and contemporary arts as part of the spiritual revolution in Western contemporary societies. The empirical study of occulture has been carried out through two main theoretical frameworks. In sociology and media studies, scholars have described the mediatization, commodification, and banalization of esotericism, while in religious studies, scholars have examined artists as spiritual seekers. This article argues that these perspectives are pieces of a larger mosaic. It proposes bridging these approaches by considering occulture as a symbolic space composed of different actors (artists, artworks, and audiences)—which can embody both secular and religious values. This article proposes a cartography based on five key tensions: 1) lowbrow art vs. highbrow art; 2) secular art vs. sacred art; 3) metaphysical ontology vs. performative ontology; 4) author’s intention vs. audience’s reception; and 5) spiritual seekers vs. religious dwellers.
Bio
Francesco Piraino is a sociologist of religion, culture, and art. He obtained his PhD in Sociology in 2016 at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and have held research positions at KU Leuven, CNRS, Ca’ Foscari, and Harvard Divinity School. He is currently Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne and Harvard University (Project “RELIGIOMICS”). He also serves as director of the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilizations and Spiritualities at the Cini Foundation in Venice. Piraino works on spirituality, esotericism, mysticism, and the relationship between art and religion. He has recently published “Sufism in Europe. Islam, Esotericism, and the New Age” (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) and edited “Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends” (with Marco Pasi and Egil Asprem, Routledge 2022).
