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Dear friends and colleagues,

The weather in Leipzig just won't change and remains grey, but at least there are some refreshing news from our KFG. We welcome a new fellow to our KFG and we announce our next colloquium next Wednesday – this time with Peter Kneitz. We also have a Call for Papers for a KFG Workshop in November on “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”. Besides that, we are also looking for new student assistants. And finally, we would like to recommend an exhibition opening, an online lecture and point you to a Call for Papers.

Enjoy and have a good week!

Anja & Lucy

Next Week’s Colloquium: Peter Kneitz on “The Malagasy secularisation process, c. 1820-present”, 9 February

Next Wednesday our Senior Research Fellow Peter Kneitz will give a presentation on “The Malagasy secularisation process, c. 1820-present” in connection with his book project “The Dynamics of Solidarity in Madagascar”. Our Senior Research Fellow Katharina Wilkens will comment on his presentation.

You can find the relevant readings in our Member Area as well as information on the zoom connection data as the colloquium will take place as an online event.

9 January | 9.15–11.45 a.m. (CET)

Online via zoom

Call for Papers: KFG Workshop on “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”, 3–4 November 2022

We are happy to announce the KFG workshop on “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region” in November 2022 and the respective Call for Papers. 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, please send your abstract and direct all inquiries to Housamedden Darwish.

Deadline for abstract (300–400 words) and short biography: 30 March
Notification of acceptance: April
Deadline for draft version of full paper: 30 September
Workshop: 3–4 November

Call for Applications: KFG Student Assistants

The academic and administrative coordination of our KFG is looking for support: From 1 April, we are looking for two student assistants to join our team. More details regarding work tasks, requirements and the application process can be found here.

Application deadline: 15 February

Opening of the exhibition “Boga njet! – There is no God – Anticlerical and Antireligious Posters from the Soviet Union”, St. Thomas Church Berlin-Kreuzberg, 5 February

After a corona-related break, we are very happy that there is now a new edition of the exhibition project on "Anticlerical and Antireligious Posters from the Soviet Union" – a cooperation between the Institute for the Study of Religions at Leipzig University and the Berlin Institute for Comparative Church-State Research.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on 5 February at St. Thomas Church in Berlin-Kreuzberg and can be visited until 5 March. Our Associate Member Horst Junginger from the Institute for the Study of Religions at Leipzig University will give an introduction to the exhibition.

The posters come from the holdings of the State Museum for the History of Religion in St. Petersburg, and allow visitors to take a walk through anti-religious worldviews in the Soviet Union. In several project seminars, the content of the posters was prepared and explained in more detail by texts that will be presented at the current exhibition.

Please note that only people, who are fully vaccinated and present the respective proof at the entrance, can attend the event. The number of participants is limited. A participant fee of 15 € will be charged. You will find more information about the event and can register for it via e-mail.

Vernissage: 5 February | 4.00–7.00 p.m. (CET)
Exhibition hours: 7 February–5 March, Monday to Friday | 10.00 a.m. – 3.00 p.m. (CET)
Venue: St. Thomas Church Berlin-Kreuzberg, Bethaniendamm 23-27, 10997 Berlin

Online Lecture: Jeremy F. Walton on “Houses of Worship, Objects of Heritage: On Intersections of Post-Imperial Memory and Religion”, 3 February

Our Associate Member Markus Dreßler draws our attention to a public lecture organized by The Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS) at the Central European University: Jeremy F. Walton, Leader of the Research Group “Empires of Memory: The Cultural Politics of Historicity in Former Habsburg and Ottoman Cities” at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen will speak about “Houses of Worship, Objects of Heritage: On Intersections of Post-Imperial Memory and Religion”. Registration is not necessary.

3 February | 5.30–7.30 p.m. (CET)

Online via zoom

Call for Papers: Conference on “Freethought in the Long Nineteenth Century: New Perspectives”, Queen Mary University of London, 9–10 September

How did atheist, secularist, and humanist ideas circulate within and across nations in the long nineteenth century? This conference seeks to consider this question at both micro and macro scales, exploring the local, national, and international networks that enabled freethought to flourish. There has been a tendency for Anglophone freethought to be considered separately from European traditions, and both are often cut off from, and can overshadow, wider global currents. Recently, significant steps have been taken in making connections across such boundaries through edited collections such as the internationally orientated Cambridge History of Atheism, ed. by Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (2021), and Freethinkers in Europe: National and Transnational Secularities, 1789−1920s, ed. by Carolin Kosuch (2020). This conference builds upon such publications and warmly welcomes proposals, which explore how freethought discourses in the period 1789–1914 operated on a global scale, and how the legacies of these persisted across the twentieth century and through to the present.

The conference will be organized by Clare Stainthorp from the Queen Mary University of London, with Anton Jansson from the University of Gothenburg and Madeleine Goodall from Humanists UK, the British Humanist Association.

Submission of proposals for papers (300 words + 50-word biography) via e-mail by 1 March

Conference Websit

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.