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February 28th, 2013

Conference: Apocalyptic Politics: Framing the Present

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The Philosophy Department at Villanova’s will be holding its 18th Annual Philosophy Conference this Spring (April 12-13). This year’s conference is entitled “Apocalyptic Politics: Framing the Present.” Confirmed speakers include Mladen Dolar, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič. From the announcement:

The present is often characterized as a critical moment that totters between possibilities of irresolvable catastrophe and redemptive restoration. Such claims involve prophecies of an end. Whether consisting in theological predictions of a messianic end, political predictions of a revolutionary end, or historical predictions of an epochal end, claims on the future charge the present with immediate significance through the ethical and political demands they place on it. This is to say, an anticipated end, which in a way is not-yet, is also always enacted in the present. Apocalyptic futures clearly enter into the structure of contemporary subjects – of their desires and drives, on the planes of fantasy and of theory – but these relations call for clarification. The multiplicity of ways in which prophecy can be received, for instance – whether the foretold end is interpreted as already-accomplished, imminent, or in the indeterminate future, whether the end is met with a spirit of fear or hopeful anticipation, or whether it is understood as necessary and irrevocable or as contingent and preventable, etc. – invites fundamental inquiry into the conscious and unconscious relations of the subject to history and its ruptures.

Read more here. For more information about the conference please contact Rachel Aumiller and Chris Drain: villanovaphilosophy@gmail.com.

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February 22nd, 2013

CFP: Is the Post-Colonial Post-Secular?

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The Religion Department at Syracuse University will be hosting a conference this fall (September 20-21) entitled, “Is the Post-Colonial Post-Secular?” The Conference promotional reads:

Across the humanities, critical scholarship on the secular / secularism / secularization has recently ballooned. Scholars of history, anthropology, political theory, and religion have begun revisiting questions of enchantment and disenchantment, political theology, blasphemy, religious freedom, and much more. Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age in particular has garnered wide attention, but Taylor’s narrative focuses on the disenchantment of modern Christian Europe. Before and after A Secular Age, scholars have probed the boundaries of the secular beyond Christian Europe, and beyond the confines of intellectual history.

Some have asserted that the ideologies of secularism and colonialism are deeply intertwined. Others have asserted that post-colonial religiosity remains a symptom of colonial control of reason and affect. Still others have pointed to neo-liberalism as the shared basis of contemporary racial, religious, and post-colonial regimes.

We invite proposals that probe the question, “Is the Post-Colonial Post-Secular?” Projects may employ methods of history, literary criticism, theoretical reflection, ethnography, or cultural studies. We are interested in projects from a variety of regions and periods, for example contemporary Africa, the early U.S., or nineteenth century Haiti.

Read the full conference description and deadlines for proposals here.

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February 19th, 2013

Postdoctoral Fellowships in Secularism and New Religiosities

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The University of Göttingen has announced the launch of a research network (CETREN) focused on ‘The Politics of the New.” Its initial project, “Secularism and New Religiosities” [PDF], seeks two postdoctoral research fellows:

The two positions, to begin in October 2013, will be offered as two-year fixed-term contracts on a full-time basis (currently 39,8 hours per week) and will be remunerated at the TV-L E13 level (in accordance with the German public sector pay scale).

The pilot project “Secularism and New Religiosities” examines new forms of religiosity that emerge under various regional or national regimes of secularism, and how these are shaped in transnational arenas of cultural, political and legal interaction [...] Within this wider context, we invite post-doctoral research proposals that theoretically and empirically analyze new religiosities in comparative perspective; cross-religious as well as cross-regional comparisons are welcome. While the overall project’s main focus is on South Asia, East Asia, and Europe, proposals may broaden the comparative scope by including other regions.

Successful applicants must have a PhD in a relevant field, such as history, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, or area studies. Researchers will be based at the University of Göttingen, but will be permitted to conduct fully-funded field research for part of the two-year period, upon consultation with the principal investigators.

Read the full advertisement and instructions on applying here.

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February 12th, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI resigns

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In a surprising announcement, Pope Benedict XVI stated on Monday that would resign at the end of the month. The declaration in part reads:

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

Benedict XVI would be the first Pope to resign since Pope Gregory XII in 1415 as a result of the Western Schism. His resignation has prompted much discussion over his ultimate legacy, as well his potential successor and the future of the Catholic Church.

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February 12th, 2013

Conference: After Secularization

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On March 1st and 2nd, 2013, the Social Science Research Council and the University of California Humanities Research Institute will co-sponsor a conference at the University of California, Irvine entitled “After Secularization.” The conference features the dissertation research of an interdisciplinary group of scholars from around the country who are investigating the secular and secularism after the failure, or at least refiguring, of the secularization thesis. Their projects are grounded in a wide range of contexts—historical, literary, and social scientific.

The conference has grown out of the Social Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, with the support of which the panelists met in 2010 to assess the state of the field and to refine their initial research plans. The participants now reconvene with senior scholars to present their advanced research and offer future directions for inquiry into the secular.

The event is free and open to the public. Read more on the event, including the conference agenda and location, here. Please contact Joseph Blankholm at jlb2210@columbia.edu with any questions.

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February 7th, 2013

The alienation of religion from the left

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Noting that “nearly all of the white Americans who drifted away from organized religion in the last few decades were liberals,” Claude S. Fischer worries worries that this is problematic for both the left and the right:

The alienation of religion from the left is a problem for both sides. For the churches, it means losing young parishioners. Some leaders sense this loss. In the wake of the 2012 election, one stunned Southern Baptist leader said, “the entire moral landscape has changed…. An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.” And the head of Focus on the Family confessed, “If the Christian message has been too wrapped around the axle of the Republican Party, then a) that’s our fault, and b) we’ve got to rethink that.”

The left should not be celebrating, however. Their separation from the churches means continuing estrangement from middle America. Part of the mythology of the left, rooted in the European experience, is that history is burying religion. Hardly; strong and widespread religiosity will be here in America for a long time.

…

Democrats probably cannot again attract most highly religious whites as they once did; that would entail regaining the South. But even a modest return—say, regaining one-fifth of the white evangelical vote—would have sizeable consequences.

Read the full piece here. For a discussion about a group of American evangelicals’ who have “left the right,” read our recent exchange, “The new evangelicals.”

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February 1st, 2013

Religious right in the United Kingdom?

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Over at Theos, a British think tank working in the area of religion, politics and society, a new report was recently released asking: “Is there a ‘Religious Right’ emerging in Britain?” Recent debates in the U.K. over abortion and same-sex marriage have galvanized the religious community, in ways reminiscent of the American religious right. This report, by Andy Walton with Andrea Hatcher and Nick Spencer, helps to shed light on these developments:

Recent years have seen an increasing number of claims that a US-style Religious Right either exists or is rapidly emerging in Britain. This forthcoming report examines whether the claims are accurate.

“This report gives a reliable overview of evidence concerning the purported rise of the Christian Right in Britian. Drawing on new research, it profiles several new Christian groups. By placing them in context, it shows why rumours that an American style movement is crossing the Atlantic are greatly exaggerated.”

Read the full report here. For more on the political influence of evangelicals in the United States, read our recent discussion on “The new evangelicals.”

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January 31st, 2013

CFP: Secularism and Secularity

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[UDPATE: The deadline has been extended until 5pm EST, March 6, 2013.—ed.]

In November we published the proposal for a new American Academy of Religion program unit—Secularism and Secularity. The group was approved in December and will hold its first official session(s) at the 2013 annual meeting in Baltimore. The call for papers is now available. Proposals should be submitted no later than March 1, 2013, per the instructions found in the call:

Over the course of the last few decades, theoretical reappraisals of the secular have tried in a variety of ways to destabilize and revalue the notion of the secular so that it no longer means simply the “absence of religion.” Yet vernacular uses of the secular frequently continue to orbit around that very understanding. With this in mind, we invite proposals for papers or panels that explore “the secular” at its various sites of construction. In concert with this year’s conference theme, we are particularly interested in proposals that critically engage public understandings of secularism as well as those that investigate the constitution of the secular in religiously plural publics, in multiple identity formations (especially among the so-called religious “nones”), and in and through a range of social practices (for example, those related to death and dying). In addition, for a possible cosponsored session with the Death, Dying, and Beyond Group, we seek proposals on secular approaches to death.

For more information about this call or about the group more generally please email: secularism.secularity@gmail.com.

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January 30th, 2013

Where are the women priests?

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With the new announcement that women will now be allowed to serve in combat roles in the military, Mary E. Hunt, at Religion Dispatches, compares women’s changing roles in the military to their roles in the Catholic Church.

Much of the conversation surrounding the new military laws suggests that “not much will change on the ground because women are already doing combat jobs.” What will change here are the legal laws that will prevent women from receiving promotions because they didn’t serve an “official combat tour of duty.” Similarly, women are not ordained in the Catholic Church, another long standing officially male-only profession,

Though two different groups, St. Joan’s International Alliance and Women’s Ordination Conference, have been arguing in favor of a “renewed Church,” so far efforts have been rebuffed. What Hunt calls for is an acknowledgement from the Church that despite its laws and official practices, many women are already putting in the work of clergywomen, only without gaining the recognition, much like their sisters in the military. She states:

Like women in combat, non-ordained people do what needs to be done pastorally and argue the details later. This is how social change happens. Laws are made and changed in response to already existing situations, not to fantasies….Women priests already exist through ordination processes that parallel the official one, and plenty of Catholic women minister in their own ways.

You can read the full essay here.

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January 28th, 2013

Where are the “new evangelicals” going?

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Writing in Religious Dispatches, Sarah Posner tackles TIF’s recent exchange on “The new evangelicals,” specifically the lead essay by Marcia Pally. While Posner acknowledges the changes occurring within the evangelical community, she questions other parts of Pally’s argument:

It’s true, of course, that the measure of a person’s religious and political beliefs is more complex than how she pulled the lever in the voting booth. And it’s also true, as Pally readily admits, that the religious right is still “robust.” Pally’s purpose, though, is not only to convince us that the “new” evangelicals exist—and on that point she is unquestionably correct—but that their views, habits, and activism represent (1) a fundamental shift from the religious right, and (2) potentially fruitful alliances with progressives and the Democratic Party. On both those points, she elides many complicating factors.

Read the full piece here.

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