At last November’s AAR meeting in Montreal, a plenary session presided over by AAR President and SSRC Working Group Chair Mark Juergensmeyer featured a discussion between Craig Calhoun, José Casanova, Saba Mahmood, and Charles Taylor on the need to rethink the category of ‘secularism’ given the enduring significance of religion in the modern world. Watch the video:
The plenary session at AAR was organized in conjunction with the forthcoming publication of Rethinking Secularism (Oxford University Press). A product of the SSRC’s ongoing project on religion and international affairs, this book seeks to reframe discussions of religion in the social sciences by drawing attention to the central issue of how ‘the secular’ is constituted and understood, and how new understandings of these formations shape various practical projects in politics and international affairs. Edited by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Rethinking Secularism will feature essays by Scott Appleby, Talal Asad, Rajeev Bhargava, Craig Calhoun, José Casanova, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Mark Juergensmeyer, Peter Katzenstein, Cecelia Lynch, Richard Madsen, Alfred Stepan, Charles Taylor, and Peter van der Veer.
