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
A Secular Age
This discussion of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is the first discussion on The Immanent Frame. You might want to begin by reading the first essay by Robert Bellah here.
The discussion hosted below expanded to include critical conversation about the edited volume Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, edited by Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Craig Calhoun, in 2010.
For a sub-thread regarding “Sex in a Secular Age” click here.
For background on the founding of The Immanent Frame and the decision to host sustained dialogue on “the secular,” read Jonathan VanAntwerpen’s “Introducing The Immanent Frame” 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…