19.11.2019
Our director Monika Wohlrab-Sahr will join the 2019 annual meeting of the Social Science History Association (SSHA) in Chicago (21-24 November 2019). She will present a talk in Saturday's morning session on "Commemorating David Martin: The Past and Future of Secularization Theory (2)" together with José Casanova and Efe Peker, the session will be chaired by Emily Laxer.
more 28.08.2019
On 25 June 2019, the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” conducted the workshop “Religion, Civil Society and Personal (Family) Law Reform in Post-Colonial Nation-States: Interrogating Secularity in India and Beyond”. The workshop traced the changing frames of secularity in the context of governance of personal law in post-colonial nation-states and focused on unpacking some of the recent as well as historical dynamics of judicial reform of personal law in India and other post-colonial countries to think through how the principle of secularity has been intertwined with the questions of authority, authenticity and governance. A report by Mujeebu Rahman K.C.
more 06.06.2019
Public radio station Deutschlandfunk published a short report on Alevism in Germany featuring parts of an interview with our Senior Research Fellow Markus Dreßler.
more 21.05.2019
Our Senior Fellow André Laliberté (University of Ottawa) has been awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Konrad Adenauer Research Award for his entire scientific oeuvre, in particular for his research on East Asian democracies, which in many respects transcends borders. The award is endowed with 60,000 € and is to be used, among other things, to realise a long-term research project at a German research institution.
more 01.05.2019
The BBC World Service has published a detailed dossier of archival material, contemporary witness reports and detailed background reports on the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 on its homepage.
more 29.04.2019
Japan and the Japanese are facing major changes these days: for the first time in 200 years, a new Emperor is to be enthroned without his predecessor having died.
This unusual procedure has at the same time given rise to far-reaching discussions about the separation of religion and politics in Japan.
Elisabeth Marx, Junior Researcher at the HCAS "Multiple Secularities" and working on "Notions of the Secular in Intellectual Discourse on Japan" explains the background of these discussions.
more 02.04.2019
Omer Hacker and Nurit Stadler comment on the the riots evoked by the ‘women of the wall’ on 8 March 2019 at Jerusalem's western wall (Kotel) and the subsequent discussions. They are examining the specific intersection of nationalism, religion and gender in this conflict between Orthodox and non-ortodox interpretations of Judaism.
more 19.03.2019
With the exhibition Prolog Werkstatt, the Leipzig Museum of Ethnology is currently exploring the colonial past of its collection. A central aspect here is the question of how ascriptions to objects in the museum differ from their original contexts, which perspectives are reflected in them, and which interpretations are thus also given to visitors. Foteine König visited the exhibition and looks at the character of originally religious objects in the museum.
more 17.03.2019
The Dutch Association for the Study of Religion will host its annual conference in Groningen this year from 30 October to 1 November focusing on Religion and the Production of Difference. Deadline for panel suggestions is 1 April, Deadline for papers is 1 June.
more 10.03.2019
Our former Senior Research Fellow Dagmar Schwerk will present a talk titled "Carrying a Basket of Gold: A Historical Reflection on Buddhist Concepts and Ethics in Bhutan" on 18 March at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She currently holds the Khyentse Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Tibetan Buddhist Studies at UBC. In this talk she will present some of the findings of her research project carried out at the KFG "Multiple Secularities" in 2018.
more 27.02.2019
In early January, the media worldwide reported on political and religious turmoil around a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The protests started with two women who had entered the Sabarimala Temple. They thus took the rights that the Supreme Court in India had just reaffirmed for women in September 2018, after the temple had long been accessible only to men.
Roopesh OB from the Indian Institute for Technology in Bombay comments on the protests and points out that this is more than a conflict between political and religious order.
more 20.02.2019
In France, President Emmanuel Macron, with his attempt to support the training of French Imams, has provoked heated debates and, at the same time, clearly revealed the limits of the laicist system. In various countries, efforts are being made to guide the training of imams by the state and thus to cultivate a generation of imams who naturally represent and defend not only Islam but also fundamental European values. Lena Dreier illuminates the discussion against the background of the German attempts.
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