Religion and Secularism - Comparative Perspectives on Islam and Christianity

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Fall
Start and end dates: 
5 Sep 2009
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Culture, Religion and Intellectual History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
Additional information: 
Aim of the course The aim of the seminar is a) to reassess classical concepts of the secular, secularization and secularism and b) to examine critically new theoretical approaches (mainly from the fields of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Religious Studies, History, Islamic Studies and other related disciplines). As the problem of secularism in general and of secularism in Christianity and Islam in particular entangles the question of the place of European history and theory making in a global context, questions of center and de-centering, of comparability and contingency will determine the structure of the seminar. To this end, the seminar will draw in both its theoretical approaches and empirical material on studies from the Middle East, India, North America and Europe, East and West.
Learning Outcomes: 
The course is conceived in a manner as to achieve the following learning outcomes and goals. The students will: a) be introduced to major theories regarding secularism and religion in general and Christianity and Islam in particular; b) be offered an overview to recent debates about the so-called ‘post-secular’ age; c) be exposed to develop at once an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective on these questions; d) learn to evaluate critically theories and case studies deriving from the study of religion, history, sociology and social anthropology.
Full description: 

1. Week: Introduction to the Theme and Seminar

2. Week: The Secular, Secularization, and Secularism: Definitions

a) Historical developments

1. José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago, London 1994 (chapter 1 ‘Secularization, Enlightenment, and Modern Religion’) pp. 11-39. [savepdf]

2. David Martin, On Secularization : towards a revised general Theory. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2005. (chapter 1.Sociology, Religion and Secularization’ and Chapter 9) pp. 17-25 and 123-140. [savepdf] [savepdf]

b) Comparative perspectives

3. Charles Taylor, ‘Modes of Secularism’, in Secularism and its Critics, ed. by Rajeev Bhargava, Delhi et al, 1998, pp. 31-53. [savepdf]

 4. Philip Gorski and Ates Altinordu, ‘After Secularization?’ Annu. Rev. of Sociology 2008, 34: 55-85. [savepdf]

 3. Week: Current public Debates on the Salience of Religion and Secularism

a) History and universalism: The Asad –Casanova debate

5. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford UP. 2003. (chapter 6: Secularism, Nation-State, Religion, pp. 181-201). [savepdf]

6. Jose Casanova, ‘Secularization Revisited: A Reply to Talal Asad’, in Powers of the Secular Modern – Talal Asad and his Interlocutors, ed. by David Scott and Charles Hirschkind, Stanford 2006, pp. 12-30. [savepdf]

b) Science, evolution, and faith: The Dawkins vs. Eagleton debate

7. Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Reflections on the God Debate, New Haven, Yale UP 2009, Chapters 2,4 (47-108,140-169). (selection) [savepdf]

8. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London et al, 2006, pp. 161-202 (ch. 5). [savepdf]

For background reading:

9. Stanely Tambiah, Magic, science, religion, and the scope of rationality. The Lewis Henry Morgan Weeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990. (chapters 1 & 2 ‘Magic, Science and Religion in Western thought: anthropology’s intellectual legacy’, pp. 1-31). [savepdf]

4. Week: Classical Concepts of political Order and Religion in Christianity and Islam

a) Islam

10. Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought, Austin 1982, Introduction, pp. 1-17 and Chapter 3, pp 104-160. [savepdf]

11. Said A. Arjomand, ‘Religion and the Diversity of Normative Orders’, in S.A. Arjomand (ed.), The Political Dimensions of Religion. New York 1993, pp. 43-68. [savepdf]

b) Civil religion and Eastern Orthodoxy

12. Robert Bellah ‘Civil Religion in America.’ and ‘Religion and the Legitimation of the American Republic’ in The Robert Bellah Reader, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2006. pp. 225- 264. [savepdf]

13. Aristeides Papadakis 'The Historical Tradition of Church-State Relations under Orthodoxy' in Pedro Ramet, Eastern Christianity and Politics in the 20th Century, Durham&London: Duke University Press, 1988), volume 1, pp. 37-58. [savepdf]

 5.-8. Weeks: Religion, the State and the Secular in comparative Perspectives– Case Studies

5 .Week: Case study: Europe, West

Theoretical and historical perspectives – Western Europe

14. Jean Bauberot’s ‘The Two Thresholds of Laicization’, in Rajeev Bhargava (ed.), Secularism and its Critics, Chapter 4, pp. 94-136. [savepdf]

15. Daniele Hervieu-Léger, ‘Religion as Memory’ in Religion : Beyond a Concept. Ed. Hent de Vries, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 2008, pp. 245-258. [savepdf]

16. Daniele Hervieu-Léger, ‘Individualism, the Validation of Faith and the Social Nature of Religion in Modernity’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Oxford 2001, pp.161-175. [savepdf]

b) Case studies: Islam in Europe

17. Talal Asad, ‘Muslims as a “Religious Minority” in Europe’, in T. Asad, Formations of the Secular in Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford 2003, Chapter 6, pp. 159-180. [savepdf]

18. Special case study – to be discussed at the beginning of the term

6. Week: Case study: Europe, East

a) Theoretical and historical perspectives – Eastern Europe

19. Grace Davie, ‘Europe: The Exception that proves the rule?’, in The Desecularisation of the World: resurgent Religion and World Politics, ed. by Peter Berger, Washington, 1999, p. 65-84. [savepdf]

20. Peter Berger, Orthodoxy and Global Pluralism. Demokratizatsiya. The. Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 13, No. 3 (Summer 2005): 440. Stable URL: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3996/is_200507/ai_n15704841/pg_2/?tag=content;col1

b) Case studies

Literature to be discussed at the beginning of the term.

7. Week: Case Studies: Turkey and Middle East

Secularism in Muslim Societies

21. Aziz Al-Azmeh, ‘The Religious and the Secular in Contemporary Arab Life’, in, Islams and Modernities, 2nd edition, ed. Aziz Al-Azmeh, Verso Books, 1996, pp. 41-58. [savepdf]

22. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey. London 1998, pp. 3-19. [savepdf]

23. M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim democracy in Turkey, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 14-44 . [savepdf]

8. Week: Colonialism, religion and modernity

24. John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Modernity and its malcontents : ritual and power in postcolonial Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993 ‘Introduction’, pp. xi-xxxviii. [savepdf]

25. Shmuel Eisenstadt, ‘The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of “Multiple Modernities’’, in Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, ed. by Bryan Turner, pp. 1-22. [savepdf]

b) Case Study: India

26. Peter van der Veer, The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire in Victorian Britain and British India. In Nation and Religion: Perspective on Europe and Asia, ed. by Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 15-43. [savepdf]

27. Mushirul Hasan, ‘Secularism: The Postcolonial Predicament’, ibid, Legacy of a Divided Nation. India’s Muslims since Independence. New Delhi 1997, pp 134-165. [savepdf]

9. Week: Case Studies: The Secularism Debate in India

28. Ashis Nandi, The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Toleration, in Secularism and its critics ed. Rajeev Bhargava , New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 321- 344. [savepdf]

29. Stanely Tambiah, `The Crisis of Secularism in India`, in Secularism and its Critics ed. Rajeev Bhargava , New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 418-453. [savepdf]

10. Week: Public Sphere and Secular Ethics

a) Theoretical approaches

28. Jürgen Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, European Journal of Philosophy, 14, 1 (2007), pp. 1-25. [savepdf]

29. Saba Mahmood, Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation. Public Culture 2006, vol. 18(2): 323-347. [savepdf]

30. Baber Johansen, ‘Apostasy as Objective and Depersonalized Fact: Two recent Egyptian Court Judgments’, in Social Research 70, 3 (2003) 687-710 (Special issue: Islam, Public and Private Spheres) [savepdf]

b) Case studies:

Case study to be discussed at the beginning of the term.

11. Week: Globalisation and transnational Religions

a). Theoretical approaches

31. Bryan Turner, ‘Politics and Culture in Islamic Globalism’, in Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, ed. by Bryan Turner (vol. 4: Islam and Social Movements, London, NY, pp. 84-101. [savepdf]

32. Robert Hefner, Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 1998, vol. 27: 83-104. [savepdf]

b) Case studies: New forms of religious expression

33. Thomas Csordas, Global religion and the re- enchantment of the world: the case of Catholic Charismatic Revival. Anthropological Theory, 2007, Vol. 7(3): pp: 295-314 [savepdf]

34. Joel Robbins The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2004, 33: 117–43. [savepdf]

12. Week: Fundamentalisms

35. Charles Taylor, Religious mobilizations. Public Culture 2006, Vol. 18(2), pp. 281-300. [savepdf]

36. Nickie Keddie, ‘The New Religious Politics. Where, When and Why do Fundamentalisms appear?’ CSSH 40, 4 (1998) 696-723. [savepdf]

Final Discussion

 

 

 

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