After the rise of multicultural policies in the 1980s and 1990s, the winds have shifted in Europe. Terrorist attacks in…
Multiculturalism in Europe
multiculturalism
Varieties of religious freedom and governance
As Elizabeth Shakman Hurd’s and Saba Mahmood’s earlier contributions to this discussion remind us, the received wisdom in Western policy…
Contradictions of religious freedom and religious repression
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of seventy years of anti-religious policies---of a period in which religious…
Change over time: A conversation with Robert W. Hefner
In this installment of the Rites and Responsibilities dialogue series, I met with the Boston University anthropologist and scholar of…
Freeing religion at the birth of South Sudan
If you had the opportunity to start from scratch, without the burden of a permanent constitution or an entrenched legal…
Charles Taylor on secularism
Over at the New Statesman, Jonathan Derbyshire interviews Charles Taylor on his new book Secularism and Freedom of Conscience.
There is no such thing as a monoculture
“We develop in multi-cultural and multi-religious societies. To say this is to state the obvious. There is no religiously homogeneous…
A coherent integration policy for Europe
In the New York Times opinion pages, Boston College political science professor Jonathan Laurence argues that it's up to---and in…
Multiple secularities and their normativity as an empirical subject
It is difficult to come to an agreement when normative issues are concerned. Are the “moderate” forms of European secularisms…
Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe?
Even quite sober academics speak of "a contemporary crisis of secularism," claiming that "today, political secularisms are in crisis in…