I have long admired Charles Taylor and have read most of what he has written and always found him helpful.…
Secularism of a new kind
Book blog
Scholars from varying disciplines engage in critical discussions of recent books. Additionally, scholars introduce their books with an original essay or, occasionally, an original essay reviews an important new book, connecting it to other threads of conversation in the academy and beyond.
You can read our very first book forum, on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and the continued discussion around Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age here.
Idealism, materialism, secularism?
When I teach early modern political theory to undergraduates, I begin by trying to conjure a worldview and subjective experience…
The buffered self and the battle of ideas
As I read Wendy Brown's recent post on A Secular Age, I see that I made a bad job of…
A story to tell
Stories, at least good stories, are full of details that demand time and space in a narrative. They are worth…
The slipstream of disenchantment & the place of fullness
One of the most important books of our time, Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age explains how many Europeans and their…
Problems around the secular
One great problem is that the term “secular” is a western term, and corresponds to a very old distinction within…
Secularization ain’t dead yet
Normally, when one sits down to read a book hailed by a figure such as Robert Bellah as “one of…
Human rights in a secular age?
The theme of loss is...a deep undercurrent in Taylor’s account. One question that those of us working in the area…
Secularism, hegemony, and fullness
What are the stakes in wanting a fixed definition of religion, whether in terms of “a sense of fullness,” as…
The scope and uses of secularity
Early in Charles Taylor’s study, he remarks that the secular condition, in which belief is an option and religion a…