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Dear friends and colleagues,

our colloquium is taking a short break and we will be back in July with our next presentation. Next week, our KFG workshop “Material Secularities” will take place, for which you are still welcome to register.

On the other side of the globe, the International Sociological Association is holding its XX ISA World Congress of Sociology with a focus, among others, on “multiple secularities”. Our Director Monika Wohlrab-Sahr will represent our KFG in Melbourne.

Furthermore, we have a Call for Applications for you today, as well as a note about a lecture and a new publication.

Enjoy and have a good week!

Anja & Lucy

KFG-Workshop “Material Secularities”, 21–23 June at Leipzig University

Next week, our KFG-Workshop on “Material Secularities” will take place, convened by our Senior Research Fellow Birgit Meyer and our Senior Researchers Magnus Echtler and Nur Yasemin Ural.

You are still welcome to register as a listener by sending us an e-mail indicating the type of participation (on-site or online). Please keep in mind that the number of places on-site is limited. If you plan to participate virtually, we will send you the zoom connection data in good time prior to the event.  

21–23 June

Strohsack, Room 4.55 and online via zoom

Monika Wohlrab-Sahr on “Post-Secularity or Multiple Secularities: What Is behind New Interpretations of the Religious Situation?” at XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, 25 June–1 July in Melbourne

From 25 June to 1 July, the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology will take place in Melbourne under the theme of “Resurgent Authoritarianism: Sociology of New Entanglements of Religions, Politics, and Economies”. A special interest of this Congress is how to disaggregate the Western, but also sociological, assumption of secularism as inherent in modern society and at the same time analytically dissociate the state from religion. It wants to provide a platform for discussing the promising avenues of inquiry within sociology and related disciplines about what have been termed “post-secular societies” and “multiple secularities”. Thus, the event will focus on how sociologists worldwide can (and do) contribute to the understanding of the resurgent authoritarianism and analyze the new entanglements of religions, politics, and economies.

Our director Monika Wohlrab-Sahr will represent our KFG on-site in Melbourne. She will contribute with her lecture on “Post-Secularity or Multiple Secularities – What Is behind New Interpretations of the Religious Situation?” where she discusses recent interpretations of the present religious situation that seem to be in competition with each other. Moreover, Monika will be one of the discussants in the session with Jörg Stolz from the University of Lausanne, who will speak on “Is the Secular Transition a Global Phenomenon? New Evidence and Problems”.  

25 June–1 July | Melbourne

Lectures: Ladito Risang Bagaskoro on “Indonesian New Criminal Code: Critical notes on freedom of religion and speech” and Nada Arina Romli on “Flexing Culture: Contradiction with the simple lifestyle taught in Islam”, 22 June at Leipzig University

The interdisciplinary exchange project entitled “Taking Perspectives: Fremdverstehen und gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt” (Understanding of Foreign Perspectives and Social Cohesion”) is organized by our Senior Research Fellow Thomas Schmidt-Lux and Christoph Enders from the Faculty of Law at Leipzig University, as an interdisciplinary study module within the framework of a cooperation between Leipzig University and universities in Jakarta and Malang in Indonesia. The module will take place this year as a ten-day block course from 26 June to 9 July in Leipzig and at the end of October/beginning of November in Jakarta and Malang.

Already in the coming week, there will be presentations at the Faculty of Law, held by lecturers from Indonesia: Ladito Risang Bagaskoro from the Universitas Brawijaya will speak on “Indonesian New Criminal Code: Critical notes on freedom of religion and speech”, while Nada Arina Romli from the Universitas Negeri Jakarta will focus on “Flexing Culture: Contradiction with the simple lifestyle taught in Islam”.

Those interested are welcome to attend.

22 June | 1.15–2.45 p.m. (CEST)

Leipzig University, Faculty of Law, Burgstraße 21, Room 5.30

Call for Applications: PostDoc position in Religious Studies and Islam at University of Leeds

The School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds is seeking to appoint a one-year, fixed-term Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies and Islam to replace Seán McLoughlin who will hold a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship during the 2023-24 academic session.

Applicants will have submitted their PhD thesis (or be very close to submitting it) in Religious Studies, Islamic Studies or another demonstrably relevant area and have relevant subject expertise and teaching experience in the areas of the sociology and anthropology of Islam and Muslim religion, culture, politics and society, especially in the UK context, and Religious Studies more broadly.

For further information and queries please contact Mikel Burley, Deputy Head of School.

Application deadline: 30 June

If you have any content that you think suits the purpose of the weekly, please feel free to send it to us at multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.