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Inside Multiple Secularities 09/2022
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Dear friends and colleagues, With this newsletter we would like to bring you the latest KFG updates. As the summer break comes to an end, we welcome new colleagues to our group in September and October and say goodbye to the fellows who have recently left. We would also like to share our upcoming events with you. In addition to new publications by our members, we also want to draw your attention to our latest bulletin entry. Our bulletin offers the opportunity to comment on current political, social, or cultural events and developments from the perspective of Multiple Secularities to put them into a broader context through our expertise or to present alternative perspectives. Numerous fellows who are working on a variety of topics and regions will be with us in Leipzig in the next months and we are excited to provide a lively and fruitful research environment for our members and guests. We also are very much looking forward to keeping you informed about our work and further opportunities for collaboration. Enjoy! Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Christoph Kleine |
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New Fellows at the KFGIn May we welcomed Rajeev Bhargava as a Senior Research Fellow to the KFG. Rajeev’s project on “Pre-modern and modern forms of religious coexistence in India” will be hosted in Leipzig until December 2022.
Hugh McLeod, Emeritus Professor of Church History at the University of Birmingham, joined us at the beginning of September and will be working on his project called “Is Sport a Religion?”. He will stay with us until 15 November.
Asonzeh Ukah, Professor and Chair of the Study of Religions at the University of Cape Town, has also been part of our research centre since the beginning of September. During his six-month stay in Leipzig he will be focusing on his research project on “Apocalyptic Politics of Prayer camps and the future of the Secular in Africa”.
We also have a former fellow back with us at the KFG: Dietrich Jung, Professor and Head of the Center for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies, Institute for History at the University of Southern Denmark. He will continue his work on “Islamic Modernities in World Society” from September to December. |
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We are also looking forward to welcome more colleagues in October:
Klaus Buchenau, Professor of Southeast and East European History at Universität Regensburg, will be with us from October to March working on his research project "Russian secularities through the lense of Christian-Muslim relations in the Volga region, 16th to 21st centuries".
Marian Burchardt, Professor of Sociology at the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) and Institute of Sociology at Leipzig University, has been an essential associate member of our research group since its beginning and has already contributed to our research with his work. Now we are pleased to have him with us for 12 months as a Senior Research Fellow. He will be researching for his project "Regulating Difference. Religious Diversity and Nationhood in the Secular West".
Uta Karstein, Research Fellow in Cultural Management and Sociology of the Cultural Field at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Leipzig University, will work with us for 6 months starting in October. She will enrich our project with her work on "Coping with Autonomy: How Religion Dealt With the Emergence of an Autonomous Art Field in 19th Century Germany".
We are also very excited about our new Associate Members:
Lori G. Beaman, Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, will be holding the prestigious Leibniz Professorship at Leipzig University for the winter semester 2022/2023. The Leibniz Professorship is awarded each semester to renowned international researchers and is one of the highest honours our university bestows. We are delighted to have Lori join us in the KFG during her stay in Leipzig and are looking forward to this great opportunity for collaboration.
Liudmila Nikanorova, Researcher at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen, will spend her mobility fellowship with us in Leipzig to work on her research project on "The Governmateriality of Indigenous Religions" over the next 12 months.
We are very happy to have you all with us – or to have you with us soon – and warmly welcome you to our team! |
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Farewell to Fellows
In the meantime, we have also said goodbye to several of our senior research fellows.
In May we said farewell to Giuseppe Tateo, who stayed with us for one year from June 2021. Giuseppe’s research project concerned “Church-building after socialism: an overview”.
In July, Tom White left the KFG. He joined us in January 2022 and worked on his research project on “Pacific secularities: Religion, race and Fiji’s secular state” during his six-month stay.
We also said goodbye to Todd Weir in July. Todd had been with us since February working on his project “Culture Wars and the Shaping of Modern Worldviews: A Transnational Conceptual History”.
Anindita Chakrabarti was also with our KFG between June and July. It was her third stay in Leipzig after 2017 and 2019. She worked on her project “Imam, Qazi and the judge: an ethnographic exploration of the ’Islamic’ and civil courts of Uttar Pradesh (India)”.
This month we will also have to say goodbye to two of our senior research fellows.
Sita Steckel, Associate Professor for the History of the High and Late Middle Ages as well as Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster, joined us in April and worked on her project “A critical assessment of the role of the European Middle Ages for the emergence of specific concepts of secularity”.
Christel Gärtner, Professor at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster and Principal investigator for the Graduate School RePliR (“Regulating Religious Plurality in the Region”), also joined our KFG in April and contributed to the KFG with her research project on “Secularity as a point of reference in how people position themselves biographically”.
We thank all of you sincerely for your contributions. It was a pleasure working with you and we are looking forward to further opportunities to collaborate.
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Currently, we are not offering any new fellowships. For inquiries please contact Johannes Duschka.
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Book Launch: Sushmita Nath, “The Secular Imaginary: Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India” | 21 SeptemberOur Senior Research Fellow Sushmita Nath will give a presentation on her recently published book “The Secular Imaginary: Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India”.
The publication focuses on the question “What is the discourse of secularity in modern India?” While recognizing that the dominant language of political modernity of Western societies is not easily translatable in non-Western societies, The Secular Imaginary elaborates upon an intellectual history of secularity in modern India by focusing on the two most influential political leaders – M. K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It is an intellectual history of both idea(s) and intellectuals, which sheds light on Indian narratives of secularity – the Gandhian sarva dharma samabhava, Nehruvian secularism and ‘unity in diversity’. It revisits this dominant narrative of secularity of the twentieth century, which influenced and shaped the imagination of the modern nation-state.
Discussants:
Date: 21 September | 09:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. (CET)
Venue: Hybrid format | Leipzig University, Strohsack, 4.55 and via zoom
If scholars from outside the KFG "Multiple Secularities" wish to attend the colloquium, please send a short inquiry to multiple-secularities[at]uni-leipzig.de.
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Screening ReligionOn 21 September we will be showing the film “Kongo” as part of our Screening Religion film series at Cinémathèque Leipzig at naTo. As the directors of the film, Hadrien La Vapeur and Corto Vaclav, describe it, in Africa, no sphere of society escapes enchantment and magic. In his church, Médard the apostle hunts down the evil eye, which hides in the bodies of the patients he sees. He invokes spells, exorcises, but demons are crafty and the apostle himself is accused of being a sorcerer. Check out the trailer here.
The film will be followed by a discussion with our Permanent Researcher Magnus Echtler and Senior Research Fellow Asonzeh Ukah.
Date: 21 September | 7 p.m. (CET)
Venue: Cinémathèque Leipzig at naTo, Leipzig
Screening Religion: Every two months we screen documentaries and movies rarely seen in German cinemas. Religion features in every film, be it as a catalyst for negotiation processes, a source of conflict, a marker of identity, or a constitutive element of social background. Thus, we seek to screen films on religion whilst simultaneously screening for “religion” as a cinematic object. Some of the films are presented by their directors, others are introduced by KFG scholars.
Up-to-date information and the full programme can be found on our website.
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KFG Workshop on “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”, 3–4 NovemberThe KFG Workshop “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region” will take place between the 3rd and 4th of November 2022. Our Associate Senior Researcher Housamedden Darwish and our Associate Member Markus Dreßler are organizing this 2-day workshop. It aims to discuss the question of religion and secularity/secularism in (postcolonial) Occidentalist discourses and their critiques in the MENA region. The question of religion plays a pivotal role in both the Orientalist view of the “Orient” and the Occidentalist view of the “Occident”.
If you are interested in attending, please send an e-mail to Housamedden Darwish.
Date: 3–4 November
Venue: Hybrid format | Leipzig University and online via Zoom
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The work of our research group finds expression in various publication formats. In addition to monographs, edited volumes, and articles by individual members of the research group, we also make (preliminary) research results available for academic discourse in the form of working papers.
Recent KFG publications:
Working Papers
Books
- Bhargava, Rajeev, ed. Politics, Ethics and the Self: Re-reading Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj. London: Routledge India, 2022.
- Darwish, Housamedden. Knowledge and Ideology: On the Contemporary Syrian Thought [Translated Title, Original in Arabic]. Paris/Istanbul: Maysaloon for Culture, Translation and Publishing, 2022.
- Dessì, Ugo, and Christoph Kleine, eds. Secularities in Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
- Hung Tak Wai, Wong Ting Chueng, and Lee Yee Lak Elliot, eds. Huimin (Muslim Subjects): Pre-1800 Historical Sources about the Qing Empire and Islam in the Veritable Records of the Qing [「回民」──《清實錄》所載1800年前大清帝國與伊斯蘭教史料彙編]. Hong Kong: Centre for the Study of Islam Culture, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2022.
- Laliberté, André. Chinese Religions and Welfare Regimes Beyond the PRC: Legacies of Empire and Multiple Secularities. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
- Laliberté, André. Religion and China's Welfare Regimes: Buddhist Philanthropy and the State. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
- Nath, Sushmita. The Secular Imaginary: Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
- Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Levent Tezcan, eds. "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt." Special issue, Soziale Welt 25 (2022).
Articles
- Bhargav, Vanya Vaidehi. “A Hindu Champion of Pan-Islamism: Lajpat Rai and the Khilafat Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies (2022): 1–17.
- Darwish, Housamedden. "On the Relationship between Culture/Religion and Politics: A Critique of the Culturalist Approach to Islam.” In New Methods in the Study of Islam, ed. Abbas Aghdassi, and Aaron W. Hughes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022).
- Dreier, Lena. "Neue islamische Bildungsprojekte als Domestizierung des muslimischen Selbst? Studierende der islamischen Theologie in Deutschland." In "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt," ed. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tenzcan, special issue, Soziale Welt 25 (2022): 107–34.
- Gärtner, Christel. "Secularity as a Point of Reference: Specific Features of a Non-Religious and Secularized Worldview in a Family across Three Generations." Religions 13, no. 477 (2022).
- Kneitz, Peter. "Negotiating Modernity by Concepts of Relatedness: Towards the Construction of Malagasy Solidarity (Fihavanana Gasy)" Journal of Southern African Studies online (2022): 1–19.
- Merdjanova, Ina. “The Orthodox Church, Neosecularisation, and the Rise of Anti-Gender Politics in Bulgaria.” Religions 13, no. 4 (2022): 359.
- Pickel, Gert, and Cemal Öztürk. "Die Bedeutung antimuslimischer Ressentiments für die Erfolge des Rechtspopulismus in Europa: Konzeptuelle Überlegungen und empirische Befunde." In "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt," ed. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tenzcan, special issue, Soziale Welt 25 (2022): 303–55.
- Rahman, K. C. M., and Anindita Chakrabarti. “Sharia, Legal Pluralism and Muslim Personal Law: Ethnographic Lessons from the Mahallu System of Malabar, India.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 42, no. 1 (2022): 160–75.
- Tezcan, Levent, and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt – Einleitung." In "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt," ed. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tenzcan, special issue, Soziale Welt 25 (2022): 7–23.
- Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Sana Chavoshian. "Islamwissenschaft an den Grenzen von Wissenschaft, Religion und Politik: Eine feldanalytische Perspektive." In "Islam in Europa: Institutionalisierung und Konflikt," ed. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tenzcan, special issue, Soziale Welt 25 (2022): 409–44.
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Our Bulletin gives the opportunity to publish event reports and to comment on current political, social, or cultural events and developments from the perspective of Multiple Secularities to place them in a broader context through our expertise or to present alternative perspectives.
As part of the intermittent series on the war between Russia and Ukraine, our Senior Research Fellow Ina Merdjanova wrote a short piece on “Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Limits of Religious Diplomacy” on the limits of faith-based diplomacy - especially when church and state embrace each other in a symbiotic alliance to pursue their respective hegemonic ambitions.
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Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe
"Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities"
Nikolaistraße 8-10, 04109 Leipzig
Mail: multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de
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