The Post-secular in Question PDF Download

Author: Philip Gorski
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814738729
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
"This collection of original essays by leading academics represents an interdisciplinary intervention in the continuing and ever-transforming discussion of the role of religion and secularism in today's world. Foregrounding the most urgent and compelling questions raised by the place of religion in the social sciences, past and present, The Post-Secular in Question restores religion to a more central place in social scientific thinking about the world, helping to move scholarship 'beyond unbelief.'"--book jacket.

Author: Feisal Mohamed
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804780730
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Our post-secular present, argues Feisal Mohamed, has much to learn from our pre-secular past. Through a consideration of poet and polemicist John Milton, this book explores current post-secularity, an emerging category that it seeks to clarify and critique. It examines ethical and political engagement grounded in belief, with particular reference to the thought of Alain Badiou, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Gayatri C. Spivak. Taken to an extreme, such engagement produces the cult of the suicide bomber. But the suicide bomber has also served as a convenient bogey for those wishing to distract us from the violence in Western and Christian traditions and for those who would dismiss too easily the vigorous iconoclasm that belief can produce. More than any other poet, Milton alerts us to both anti-humane and liberationist aspects of belief and shows us relevant dynamics of language by which such commitment finds expression.

Author: Gustaaf Geeraerts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135129606X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Post-Secular Society argues for several characteristics of the secular: the experience of living in a secular age and the experience of living without religion as a normal condition. Religion in the West is often seen as marked by both innovation and disarray. In spite of differing approaches and perspectives of secularization, rational choice and de-secularization, many scholars agree that the West is experiencing a general "resurgence" of religion across most Western societies. Post-Secular Society discusses the changes in religion related to globalization and New Age forms of popular religion. The contributors review religion that is rooted in the globalized political economy and the relationship of post-secularism to popular consumer culture. Also reviewed is innovative discourse as a religious belief system, theories of the post-secular, religious, and spiritual well-being, and healing practices in Finland and environmentalism. This paperback edition includes a new preface by Peter Nynas.

Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674986911
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Author: Jürgen Habermas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745694705
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address. In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time.

Author: Phil Zuckerman
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 0143127934
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A sociology professor examines the demographic shift that has led more Americans than ever before to embrace a nonreligious life and highlights the inspirational stories and beliefs that empower modern-day secular culture.

Author: John Caruana
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438470185
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
For some time now, thinkers across the humanities and social sciences have increasingly called into question the once-dominant view of the relationship between modernity and secularism, prompting some to speak of a "postsecular turn." Until now, film studies has largely been silent about this development, even though cinema itself has been a major vehicle for such reflection. This fact became inescapable in 2011 when Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Lars von Trier's Melancholia were released within days of each other. While these two audacious and controversial films present seemingly opposite perspectives—the former a thoughtful meditation on faith, the latter a portrayal of nontriumphalist atheism—together they raise critical questions about transcendence and immanence in modern life. These films are, however, only the most conspicuous of a growing body of works that call forth similar and related questions—what this collection aptly calls "postsecular cinema." Taking the nearly simultaneous release of The Tree of Life and Melancholia as its starting point and framing device, this pioneering collection sets out to establish the idea of postsecular cinema as a distinct body of films and a viable critical category. Adopting a film-philosophy approach, one group of essays examines Malick's and von Trier's films, while another looks at works by Chantal Akerman, Denys Arcand, the Dardenne brothers, and John Michael McDonagh, among others. The volume closes with two important interviews with Luc Dardenne and Jean-Luc Nancy that invite us to reflect more deeply on some of the central concerns of postsecular cinema.

Author: Nandini Deo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350038083
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Postsecular Feminisms explores the contested relationship between feminism and secularism through a series of case studies, featuring perspectives from the global North and South. It offers insights beyond those of the Abrahamic traditions, and includes multiple examples from South Asia. By decentering the European experience, Postsecular Feminisms shows how secularism and feminism have been constituted in North America, South Asia, and Anglophone West Africa. The book asks: can postsecular feminism offer a way to think about religion and gender so as to support women in all the variety of their lived experiences? The contributors show that postsecular feminism is a variety of feminism that is not necessarily either secularist or anti-secular. Rather it is feminism informed by a history of secularist bias within liberal feminism. Postsecular Feminisms explores both the potentials and pitfalls of postsecular feminisms, with some authors arguing that a contextually grounded praxis is possible, while others make a strong case against postsecular feminism as theory and practice.

Author: Luca Mavelli
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780203125120
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
In the last few years, the Muslim presence in Europe has been increasingly perceived as OCyproblematicOCO. Events such as the French ban on headscarves in public schools, the publication of the so-called OCyDanish cartoonsOCO, and the speech of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg have hit the front pages of newspapers the world over, and prompted a number of scholarly debates on MuslimsOCO capacity to comply with the seemingly neutral and pluralistic rules of European secularity. Luca Mavelli argues that this perspective has prevented an in-depth reflection on the limits of EuropeOCOs secular tradition and its role in EuropeOCOs conflictual encounter with Islam. Through an original reading of Michel FoucaultOCOs spiritual notion of knowledge and an engagement with key thinkers, from Thomas Aquinas to Jurg1/2n Habermas, Mavelli articulates a contending genealogy of European secularity. While not denying the latterOCOs achievements in terms of pluralism and autonomy, he suggests that EuropeOCOs secular tradition has also contributed to forms of isolation, which translate into EuropeOCOs incapacity to perceive its encounter with Islam as an opportunity rather than a threat. Drawing on this theoretical perspective, Mavelli offers a contending account of some of the most important recent controversies surrounding Islam in Europe and investigates the OCypostsecularOCO as a normative model to engage with the tensions at the heart of European secularity. Finally, he advances the possibility of a Europe willing to reconsider its established secular narratives which may identify in the encounter with Islam an opportunity to flourish and cultivate its democratic qualities and postnational commitments. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of religion and international relations, social and political theory, and Islam in Europe."

Author: Michael Rectenwald
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1614516758
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate "on-the-ground," extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.