On October 13-15, the Centre for Area Studies, University of Leipzig, in collaboration with the “Multiple Secularities”-Project, will hold its second annual conference, Multiple Secularities and Global Interconnectedness:
In this conference, we further the debate on secularism and secularity by focusing on the challenges arising from globalization and different forms of interconnectedness. Discussing these challenges from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, the conference addresses, amongst other topics, path dependencies and their transformations; vernacular secularities and the vexing question of translatability and interculturality; the usefulness of the “Multiple Modernities” approach as well as the complex interfaces between secularism, colonialism and post-colonial culture. Concentrating on European post-communist societies, East Asia, Africa, the Arab World, India and the West, the multiple understandings and interpretations of the secular are explored. In this context, the conference reflects upon the many ways in which interconnectedness has reshaped the role of major religious traditions as well as the various forms in which they interact in attempts to secularize societies and state.
Further information, including the preliminary program, can be found here.