Eduardo Mendieta
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814738726
- eISBN:
- 9780814738733
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814738726.003.0012
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter defends the claim that the post-secular (post-secularity in general) allows us to gain a more expansive and substantive understanding of subjective reflexivity insofar as a post-secular ...
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This chapter defends the claim that the post-secular (post-secularity in general) allows us to gain a more expansive and substantive understanding of subjective reflexivity insofar as a post-secular consciousness and attitude can be the foundation for “post-secular authenticity.” In order to make plausible this claim, the chapter stages a possible dialogue on the question of religion between Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, with Charles Taylor as the moderator. In this dialogue, three fundamental issues frame the question of secularity and post-secularity: the relationship between religion and “the political”; whether the “rationalization” of social institutions means their “secularization”; and the role of the religious in the constitution of modern subjectivities and agency. The chapter concludes by addressing the problem of the religious sources, or religious determinations, of subjective reflexivity.Less
This chapter defends the claim that the post-secular (post-secularity in general) allows us to gain a more expansive and substantive understanding of subjective reflexivity insofar as a post-secular consciousness and attitude can be the foundation for “post-secular authenticity.” In order to make plausible this claim, the chapter stages a possible dialogue on the question of religion between Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, with Charles Taylor as the moderator. In this dialogue, three fundamental issues frame the question of secularity and post-secularity: the relationship between religion and “the political”; whether the “rationalization” of social institutions means their “secularization”; and the role of the religious in the constitution of modern subjectivities and agency. The chapter concludes by addressing the problem of the religious sources, or religious determinations, of subjective reflexivity.
Lois Lee
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198736844
- eISBN:
- 9780191800436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736844.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies, Religion and Society
In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries have increasingly large non-affiliate, ‘subjectively secular’ ...
More
In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries have increasingly large non-affiliate, ‘subjectively secular’ populations, and actively non-religious cultural movements such as the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity and irreligion, and the relationship between them, has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of ‘modern’ life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, this book develops a new vocabulary, theory, and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial and substantial. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious—as distinct from secularity as the irrelevance or religious and religious-like cultural forms—opens up new, more egalitarian, and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are ‘not religious’ alongside those who are traditionally religious or alternatively spiritual. Identifying the non-religious in this way not only gives rise to new research questions and theoretical possibilities about how non-religious people sense and perform their difference from religious others, but allows us to reimagine the secular itself, in new and productive ways.Less
In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries have increasingly large non-affiliate, ‘subjectively secular’ populations, and actively non-religious cultural movements such as the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity and irreligion, and the relationship between them, has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of ‘modern’ life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, this book develops a new vocabulary, theory, and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial and substantial. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious—as distinct from secularity as the irrelevance or religious and religious-like cultural forms—opens up new, more egalitarian, and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are ‘not religious’ alongside those who are traditionally religious or alternatively spiritual. Identifying the non-religious in this way not only gives rise to new research questions and theoretical possibilities about how non-religious people sense and perform their difference from religious others, but allows us to reimagine the secular itself, in new and productive ways.
