Job opening: Research Project “ Multiple Secularities

الجمعة ١٩ - أبريل - ٢٠٢٤ ١٢:٢٩ مساءً

محمد البارودى في الجمعة ٣٠ - أكتوبر - ٢٠٠٩ ١٢:٠٠ صباحاً

Universität Leipzig
Institut für Kulturwissenschafte n / Lehrstuhl für Kultursoziologie
Beethovenstr. 15, 04107 Leipzig
Prof. Dr. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr
wohlrab@uni- leipzig.de

مقالات متعلقة :

Job Openings

Research Project “Multiple Secularities”
funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Saxony/Germany

Duration: 2 years

2 research fellows (50%), beginning 01/01/2010
1 research fellow (post-doc), beginning 01/04/2010

Applicants should be specialized in the sociology of religion, fully
conversant in contemporary sociological debates surrounding secularity
and modernity, have a degree in sociology or another social science
discipline (cultural studies, religious studies, political science) and
excellent oral and written skills in English language.

Closing date for the part-time positions: 13/11/2009
Closing date for the fulltime position: 31/12/2009

Description

The project aims to develop a conceptual framework that allows for a
better understanding of contemporary and historical contestations over
relationships between religion and secularity. Based on four pilot
studies (USA, India, South Africa, the Netherlands) , the project seeks
to develop conceptual tools that enable us to trace such contestations
in different social spheres in a comparative perspective through diverse
disciplinary approaches.

In contemporary debates about religion and modernity, the place of
religion in the public sphere, as well as about religion, secularity,
and democracy, classical arguments about modernization and
secularization have been increasingly questioned. Ideas of historical
linearity, convergence and differentiation have been replaced by
relativistic arguments. On one hand, these new ways of thinking have
highlighted historical contingencies, have drawn attention to the role
of social actors involved in these processes, and have sharpened our
understanding of the normative implications of the classical
secularization thesis. On the other hand, this critique sometimes
conveys new normativities and the notion of flourishing religiosity as
global standard. Moreover, the excessive emphasis on the distinctiveness
of historical, cultural and geographical settings appears to inhibit
comparative approaches that seek to uncover larger processes and structures.

Taking the critique of the classical secularization thesis into account,
the project seeks to creatively engage with this situation and develop
new conceptual pathways. Taking its cues from Eisenstadt’s notion of
multiple modernities, it explores the dynamics and underlying forces of
historical and contemporary debates and conflicts about the relation of
religion and secularity. We assume that these dynamics are diverse both
in the West and in other parts of the world. This diversity has been
engendered by confluences between processes that are culturally specific
and processes that can be seen as responses to the emergence of
secularity in the West and its global diffusion. It is these
intertwinements that are central to the project.

Relevant for the analysis are not only institutional and legal
frameworks, but also diverse figurations of cultural meaning. It can be
assumed that the dynamics of conflicts over secularity is driven by the
defence and the questioning of such cultural figurations. As a result,
their analysis is key to comparative explorations into the relationship
between religion and secularity.
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