| Description |
The seminar begins by asking what religion is, noting that scholars disagree on whether it can or should be defined. Attempts to define religion reveal tensions between viewing it as fixed essence or as a constructed idea shaped by power and context. Students are introduced to diverse theoretical approaches to religion—from psychological and sociological to historical and phenomenological—reflecting shifts in academic study after global political and cultural transformations. Religion is also explored as a global phenomenon shaped by interaction, migration, and adaptation, where traditions respond to globalization, identity negotiation, and local logics. The second part of the Seminar explores the notion of culture as a dynamic, contested concept rather than a fixed essence. Different definitions are presented, noting that scholars have long struggled to agree on what constitutes a culture and what is its nature. Static nation or region-bound models of culture are challenged by introducing transculturality: the view that cultures emerge through circulation, exchange, hybridity and power negotiation across borders. This approach highlights the processual character of culture—produced historically through interaction and border-trespassing. The third part of the seminar engages in discussion with secularity, examining it as a social phenomenon shaped by modernity, and exploring how in post-secular societies religion is re-positioned rather than simply removed. Distinctions between secularity, secularization and secularism are also drawn. Finally, the seminar considers postmodern challenges for institutional religious practice in post-secular societies.
Preparation literature
• Michael Stausberg and Mark Q. Gardiner, “Definition,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion, ed. Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (Oxford: Oxford University, 2016), 9–32.
• Frank Whaling, “Introduction,” in Theory and Method in Religious Studies: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. Frank Whaling (Berlin:Gruyter, 1995), 1–40.
• Ugo Dessì, “Religion: Globalization and Glocalization,” in The Routledge Handbook of Transregional Studies, ed. Matthias Middell (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 475–481.
• Peter Beyer, “Religious Diversity and Globalization,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, ed. Chad Meister (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
• Laila Abu‐Er‐Rub, Christiane Brosius, “Introduction: Engaging Transculturality,” in Engaging Transculturality, ed. Sebastian Meurer, Diamantis Panagiotopoulos, Christiane Brosius, Susan Richter, and Laila Abu‐Er‐Rub, 1st ed. (UK: Routledge, 2019), xxiii–xxxix.
• Helen Spencer-Oatey, What is Culture? A Compilation of Quotations, GlobalPAD Core Concepts (2012), http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad/interculturalskills/
• Hans Martin Krämer, “The Transcultural Turn in the Study of ‘Religion’,” in Engaging Transculturality, ed. Sebastian Meurer, Diamantis Panagiotopoulos, Christiane Brosius, Susan Richter, and Laila Abu‐Er‐Rub, 1st ed. (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2019), 373–385.
• John G. Stackhouse, “Religious Diversity, Secularization, and Postmodernity,” in Chad Meister, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, Oxford Handbooks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Steve Bruce, “Secularization and Its Consequences,” in The Oxford Handbook of Secularism, ed. Phil Zuckerman and John R. Shook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 55–70. |
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