From Thursday, June 14th, to Sunday, June 17th, the Philosophy Department at Ryerson University will host Varieties of Continental Thought and Religion, featuring speakers John Caputo, Bettina Bergo, Morny Joy, Nikolas Kompridis, Ron Kuipers, and Robert Sinnerbrink.
The word “varieties” characterizes the distinctive and plural voices that have emerged in contemporary continental philosophy of religion. We feel strongly that this plurality is a much-needed antidote to the one-dimensional and ultimately unconstructive representations of both religion and secularism that one finds in the popular media today. The media appears, perhaps not unsurprisingly, to be infatuated with the uncomplicated, often coarse, generalizations proffered by both religious zealots and militant atheists. While the crude messages propagated by these two groups are well suited for our sound-bite age, they hinder our ability to negotiate the complex interstices of religious and secular identities that make up the world in general. In contrast to the popular media, the recent work on religion by philosophers of the continental tradition emphasizes the remarkable interconnectedness of religion and secularism. Rather than thinking of secularism as simply a reaction to or rejection of the West’s religious heritage, many of Europe’s current leading philosophers argue that modern secularism grows out of a certain way of thinking and doing religion. The various accounts that one finds in current continental thought concerning the significance of the history and future of the relationship between religion and secularism shed light on this ongoing development.
Further description and details are available here.