Generic Secular and Critique
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Daniel Colucciello Barber, Alex Dubilet, and Anthony Paul Smith have been working on a book laying out different ways of responding to the "post-secular event". While recent work in anthropology has pushed forward more rigorous conceptions of the post-secular, there has largely been a silence regarding the repercussions of this event for Continental philosophy of religion. There has also been a lack of engagement with new methods and concepts in Continental philosophy of religion that might challenge that disciplines European and North American focus. Furthermore there has been little work considering these questions of secularism and post-secularism within anthropology and philosophy of religion with challenges and resources from critical race theory and queer theory. To respond to this silence the project has four aims:
• To provide robust philosophical accounts of the underlying theoretical presuppositions of secularity, thereby renewing the study of the secular within philosophy of religion.
• To explore the relevance of new concepts, trends and methods within continental philosophy (Deleuze, Laruelle, Badiou) for the study of religions.
• To engage with recent invocations of the postsecular, especially with anthropology (Asad, Agrama), from a (non-)philosophical perspective.
• To connect philosophers of religion in a more sustained manner to contemporary political debates and, in particular, a key debate concerning religion’s place in the public sphere. Namely how religion and secularity continue to define who counts as a human being and who does not.
The funds we are raising are only to support the costs associated with presenting working papers to each other and to the audience who supports and challenges the work. While each of the participants is a active member of academic and intellectual communities, there is a lack of monetary institutional support. Therefore we are turning to our community to crowdsource the funds needed to support the work. The proposed budget is based largely on the rising cost of plane travel. However, as the book will open with a co-written piece based off a discussion that we hope to have moderated by a fourth participant, we wanted to make sure this fourth participant was adequately compensated for their work as well as covering their traveling costs. Our first workshop was held at The University of California-Berkeley with the generous support of the Center for the Study of Religion. Our second workshop is currently scheduled to take place at the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion conference, held at Liverpool Hope University this July and with a focus on the post-secular. We know that we will gain invaluable feedback from those participants on this project, though we are in need of support to be able to attend. We also plan to meet again in an as yet undecided location for a third public workshop. And finally a fourth meeting will take place with another individual to assist us in moderating a dialogue that will form the introduction to the book, as stated above. No money will cover costs that can be supported by the authors institution and on the completion of this preliminary work we will turn to our community with the surplus of funds should there be any.
Those who support us and wish to have their names included will be named in the acknowledgements to the volume.
• To provide robust philosophical accounts of the underlying theoretical presuppositions of secularity, thereby renewing the study of the secular within philosophy of religion.
• To explore the relevance of new concepts, trends and methods within continental philosophy (Deleuze, Laruelle, Badiou) for the study of religions.
• To engage with recent invocations of the postsecular, especially with anthropology (Asad, Agrama), from a (non-)philosophical perspective.
• To connect philosophers of religion in a more sustained manner to contemporary political debates and, in particular, a key debate concerning religion’s place in the public sphere. Namely how religion and secularity continue to define who counts as a human being and who does not.
The funds we are raising are only to support the costs associated with presenting working papers to each other and to the audience who supports and challenges the work. While each of the participants is a active member of academic and intellectual communities, there is a lack of monetary institutional support. Therefore we are turning to our community to crowdsource the funds needed to support the work. The proposed budget is based largely on the rising cost of plane travel. However, as the book will open with a co-written piece based off a discussion that we hope to have moderated by a fourth participant, we wanted to make sure this fourth participant was adequately compensated for their work as well as covering their traveling costs. Our first workshop was held at The University of California-Berkeley with the generous support of the Center for the Study of Religion. Our second workshop is currently scheduled to take place at the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion conference, held at Liverpool Hope University this July and with a focus on the post-secular. We know that we will gain invaluable feedback from those participants on this project, though we are in need of support to be able to attend. We also plan to meet again in an as yet undecided location for a third public workshop. And finally a fourth meeting will take place with another individual to assist us in moderating a dialogue that will form the introduction to the book, as stated above. No money will cover costs that can be supported by the authors institution and on the completion of this preliminary work we will turn to our community with the surplus of funds should there be any.
Those who support us and wish to have their names included will be named in the acknowledgements to the volume.
Organizer
Anthony Paul Smith
Organizer
Philadelphia, PA
