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Dear friends and colleagues,

Once again, our Wednesday Weekly provides a number of interesting announcements for you: Next week, Christel Gärtner will present her research project in the colloquium. We also have a new publication, a new bulletin entry and a reminder of our lecture series on “Material Secularities” for you. Today's Weekly also includes a recommendation for an online workshop and another lecture series.

Take care and have a good week!

Anja

Next Week’s Colloquium: Christel Gärtner on “Secularity as a point of reference in biographical narrations”, 11 May

Next Wednesday, our Senior Research Fellow Christel Gärtner will give a presentation on her research project on “Secularity as a point of reference in biographical narrations”. In her work, she focuses on secular and non-religious worldviews and aims to reconstruct secular relationships with the world that develop from lived values and their transmission in the family. Our Associate Member Silke Gülker will comment on her presentation. As always, you can find the relevant readings in our Member Area.

The colloquium will take place in a hybrid format (on-site and online). Please register for the colloquium via e-mail, if you would like to join in person. In the Member Area you will also find information on the zoom connection data. 

11 May | 9.15–11.45 a.m. (CET)

Strohsack, Room 4.55 and online via Zoom

New Bulletin Entry: Ina Merdjanova on “Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Limits of Religious Diplomacy”

Continuing our irregular series on the war between Russia and Ukraine, our Senior Research Fellow Ina Merdjanova has written a short piece 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.

Our Bulletin gives the opportunity 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. If you wish to make short, journalistic style contributions to the Bulletin, please contact Johannes Duschka.  

Lecture series as part of the seminar "Material Secularities– Interdisciplinary Perspectives", 5 May

Last week we informed you about the seminar “Material Secularities–Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, which our Senior Researchers Magnus Echtler and Nur Yasemin Ural , together with our Senior Research Fellow Katharina Wilkens, are offering this summer semester at Leipzig University. The lecture series within the seminar is open to all interested parties. In a total of eight talks, several of our KFG members as well as guest speakers will shed light on the topic of Material Secularities from different perspectives.

The lecture announced for this Thursday by our Senior Research Fellow Thomas Schmidt-Lux unfortunately had to be cancelled. Instead, the discussion of Magnus Echtler's contribution from last week on “Gendered Bodies in Mountain Movies” will be continued. 


5 May | 5–7 p.m. (CET)

Leipzig University | Seminar building, Room S 403 and online via zoom

FAN Award for Mascha Schulz

We are happy to announce that our Junior Research Fellow Mascha Schulz has recently received the FAN Award in the section humanities and social science for her research on the topic of “Convoluted Convictions, Partial Positionings: Non-Religion, Secularism, and Party Politics in Sylhet, Bangladesh”. Part of the research was done during her stay with the KFG in 2017/2018.

With the FAN award, advanced PhD candidates and early postdoctoral researchers at University of Zurich are honored for their outstanding scientific achievements. Congratulations, Mascha!

Lecture Series “New perspectives on modernity in China”: Justin Ritzinger on “Push and Pull: Toward a Taylorian Theory of Alternative Modernities”, 6 May

As part of the lecture series “New perspectives on modernity in China”, Justin Ritzinger, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami, will address the topic “Push and Pull: Toward a Taylorian Theory of Alternative Modernities” on 6 May. The adaptation of religion to modernity including demythologization, rationalization, and social engagement, Ritzinger terms “push models” and considers them to be useful but insufficient. In his talk he will offer a counterbalancing “pull model”, drawing upon the account of moral frameworks in Sources of the Self to develop a Taylorian theory of the formulation of alternative modernities.

The lecture series is organized by the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies (CEMEAS) at the University of Göttingen. Registration is necessary.

6 May | 4–6 p.m. (CET)

Online via zoom

Online Workshop: “Aesthetics and affects of power in the context of religion”, 11–13 May

We would like to draw your attention to a workshop on “Aesthetics and affects of power in the context of religion”, organized by the Institute for the Study of Religions at University of Erfurt.

Religious practices and discourses took and take an especially important role in creating sensory mechanisms that structure power relations by shaping perception via aesthetics and affects. This workshop aims to understand how these sensory mechanisms function in different (religious) contexts, such as (post)colonial contact zones and global religious and spiritual practices and movements; how they relate and intertwine with intersectional discourses and practices, such as racism, whiteness, (s)exoticization, secularization; and how they affect the scholarly practice of the study of religion.

The workshop will be held in a hybrid format and online participation is open to all interested parties. Please send an e-mail for registration, the zoom link, and a detailed program including the abstracts and speaker informations.

11–13 May

Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ), Michaelisstraße 38, 99084 Erfurt AND Online via zoom

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.